


Last Man standing

by meikahidenori



Series: Team Fortress 2 [1]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 64,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meikahidenori/pseuds/meikahidenori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally loading this story up here, my first big story in the Team Fortress 2 universe. still needs some spelling tweeks here and there, but hopefully you all enjoy it.</p><p>I'm actually quite fond of this fan fiction too, this one has come a long way.</p><p>originally posted on my deviant art account... for those of you who are wondering if you've read this before!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue & the message

  
Prologue:

  
Baz leaned against the top of the battlement of Blu base on the field known lovingly as “turtle fort”. It was too quiet, but after the slaughter he had seen today, it was reassuring. It meant the RED team where not going to be coming out any time soon. He’d been a scout long enough to have seen almost everything, and that last confrontation was going to at least take a few weeks of recuperation on both sides.

  
What the hell was the Red side thinking? Seriously a scout rush NEVER worked.  
Baz rubbed his temples. So many young lives, lead like lambs to the slaughter. The idiots followed him right into sentry gun fire, which he and Chatter, his old mate had cleverly set up inside the enemy base. The old bait and chase almost never failed and it worked so well in this case, it took out four scouts, two heaves and a demoman. You didn’t live to be 25 in his particular class without knowing where and when to fall back and use plan C.  
He had never known the REDs to be so unwittingly…. DUMB.

  
Chatter stepped out onto the battlement beside the young man. The engineer  was in his early 30s and had joined up at the same time as Baz, both of them out casted for being too young by their whole team, which lead both of them into forming an alliance with each other knowing full well it was the only way either of them where ever going to survive. They had known each other for about 7 years now, watching each other’s back and knowing when it was the right time to fall out and call it quits. They had been shuffled around from base to base a lot, until 2fort, where the only way you’d ever leave is to be sent home in a box without all your limbs.

  
“Cake, son?” Chatter proffered up a large box full of sweet smelling delicacies from his home back in Utah. His wife usually sent them regular to where ever he was stationed. “Cheer yer up a treat.”

  
Baz picked out one with red frosted icing. You never turned down one of his wife’s cakes. The little delicate things were worth dying for.  
“You know yer where just doing yer job. I don’t like it any more than you do. Young e’ns doesn’t want to survive these days. Fools will always rush in as it were.” Chatter chomped into a cake with yellow icing and green sprinkles.

  
Baz was thinking and tossing the cake gently in his palms. “They had more on their side than I have ever seen before… and we still slaughtered them. I wonder if they are getting any sort of training over there at all anymore.  I mean, we’d used to come out of there in dire need of medical attention…now… we waltz in, wipe them out and waltz out with all their stuff. It’s no longer a mission as it is a fox raiding a henhouse.”

  
“Yer know you’re the worst pessimist I’ve ever…” Chatter grumbled, scratching his head under his ten gallon Texan hat.

  
“Man I’m being serious!” Baz retorted. “We only have 5 of us in this base! If anything we should be theones looking worse for wear, not them!”

  
“Can’t ‘elp, we’ve got more age and experience than they do son.” The engineer said calmly

.  
The scout cocked a rather dangerous look at the engineer. “I don’t see how that’d make much a difference. We have no sniper, pyro, demoman or solider. In fact they are having a hard time replacing them as we keep asking for them and none arrive. We’re been missing half of our defence and offence for a month and a half now, that should have at least changed the balance somewhat.”

  
“Actually gentleman, you’re our ONLY defence and offence as of now.”

  
Both men turned around, but didn’t see anything. But they knew they were being watched. There was nothing worse than talking like a traitor, and been stabbed for having sympathy towards the other team was a consequence neither wanted to face.

  
Xeromus de-cloaked and was leaning back against the wall, lurking in the dark. He was soaking in the stunned reactions of the other men, taking his time and lighting a smoke. He puffed in an elegant Frenchman way, “You missed a scout.”

  
Baz’s brow furrowed and Chatter’s expression was unreadable.

  
“How?!” Baz demanded, strutting right up to the spy and standing inches away from his fussy little French face. “There couldn’t have been five of them, they don’t train that many at one time!”

  
“We don’t, but theydo and they can, Basil” The spy glared at the scout for longer than comfortable.  Baz flinched. He hated the spy more than anyone else he had ever met and he wasn’t able to kill him due to being on the same side. Out of all the things Baz hated in the world, spies would always trump his list. That and he was the only one besides the team medic that had ever found out his real name. How, he’ll never truly know.  Xeromus continued, “The one you missed killed Ivan, who was innocently sitting out front of our base enjoying a sandvich.” He puffed. “Point blank to the back of the head, dead in instant. He was so close to retirement too.” He shook his head.  
Chatter pulled his hat over his eyes and Baz couldn’t look at either of them so stared at his feet. Loosing Ivan was a BIG thing. The old bastard knew his stuff, kept everyone on their toes despite being slower on the uptake than everyone on the team and could mow down enemies in seconds flat with a shot gun. In fact if it wasn’t for Ivan, neither Chatter or Baz would have ever gotten good at shooting at all without making constant assists. In truth, both avoided shooting with their main guns if it was avoidable, but there where time where it was either the other guy or you, so you shot him point blank in the face (or in Baz’s case, the back or the side of the head) and hope like all hell you got away with it.

  
“So this scout… did you get him?” Baz spoke carefully.

  
“No. but I do know he’s a lot smarter than the others you trapped. I will give you the information on him as I find.” Xeromus sighed. “I know full well you’d want revenge Basil, it’s all over your face.” The spy stubbed out the smoke. “Chances are he’s been around a bit too which is why he didn’t fall for your trap.”

  
“Hey now, don’t knock our trapping skills,” Chatter muttered. “If it weren’t for us yer’d be overrun by the young’uns.”

  
“Dually noted.” The spy said in soft tones. “But I think you two might have to start changing the game plan, as of right now we don’t have much in the way off being able to attack while you both create a diversion.”

  
Silence filled the battlement. They needed new blood, there was no question about it… they just didn’t have long to acquire it. Constant requests to the administrator had gone ignored, and they were beginning to think they were going to lose their hold on the fort if things kept going this way. It was a general rule that other teams where top priority than the fort teams, but nevertheless just as important to keep them full of fighters to do what was expected of them. Not a single one of them wanted to go home in a body bag… there had to be a way.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
⦁    The Message.  
  
“Scout, how many times must I tell you not to kill my messengers? Televisions are not cheap and you never send them back to me.” The administrators voice clicked over the screen that was tied to a now, extremely dead grey messenger who was propped upright against a wall.  
  
“Well stop having the bastards sneak up behind me! I almost cut my hand off when he jumped me!” Baz protested. He’d been trying to raid a midnight snack from the bases kitchen when the messenger appeared form nowhere. The grey suited man of no description was now missing a head, thanks to how fast Baz was with a meat cleaver. Now, himself, Chatter, Xeromus and their team medic Von, where all standing around looking down that the screen that had been tied to the corpse.  
  
The woman on the screen waved it off. “No matter gentlemen, I have been reading your request for new team members, but unfortunately we’ve had a few problems in the training yards due to that headless horseman fiasco a few months ago which is still unresolved. We are going to send some ‘raw’ recruits who have just arrived with very little experience and it’s your job to provide on the job training. If you do well, we’ll send you some more, if you fail, well... let’s just hope you don’t disappoint me gentlemen.”  
  
“Hmm, when will they be arriving madam?” Xeromus asked. As leader of the BLU side he had to ask all the right questions before someone else shot their mouth off first.  
  
“Tomorrow at dawn. You are to give them medicals, and assign them rooms and start training as soon as possible. If anything happens to them before they are deemed fit for official service, you will find out about it faster than the RED side can pick you off.”  
  
“Vell now, zer medicals vill not be a probvem.” Von bowed at the screen. Everyone was a bit edgy when the medic spoke, as Von was not the kind of guy who would gladly volunteer the time of day for anyone, let alone a bunch of newbies. No one ever dared to enter his sick bay if they could help it, as he was always experimenting with some new drug or poison, a lot of the time it was hard to work out which. He spent a lot of his time feeding crickets to his frogs, which he then pulled to pieces and used them in various things and the end result was whatever was put into his twisted syringe gun. When von was feeling social, mostly at meal times, he’d regal stories about medical malpractice filling the rest of his small team with either fear for their lives around him, or bafflement as to how he still had a licence to practice medicine. They’d rather die than be alone with the guy, but you couldn’t argue that he knew how to revive you from the brink of death, so there was a small amount of unshared and unspoken respect for the German. It was the loss of Ivan that made them all feel slightly guilty, as with him, Von was more or less living under a rock. To see him truly be alive was to see him out there on the battlefield.  
  
Baz knew all about “on the job” training. They pulled that shit on him when he joined. There was no way in hell he was going to see it happen to a large bunch of recruits.  
  
“Hang on Hang on, you expect us to train classes in areas that we have no expertise in? The ones that we do know are unteachable, you have to have experience in not dying on the field to get any good at what you’re role is supposed to be.” Baz couldn’t help himself. He swung him arm and pointed out back towards the main fighting areas of the fort and practically spat at the screen, “Out there is miniature warzone, it’s not like the bases at Well, Double-cross, Gravel Pit and BadWater. At least in those you’re more likely to survive. There’s nowhere to hide out there unless you really force yourself to blend into shadows! And there aren’t many of those!”  
  
Chatter at this point grabbed Baz and pulled him back away from the messenger and tried to attempt to calm the scout down. He had also gone through the “On the job” training that Baz had, and while more prepared for it than Baz was, he still had to maintain a level head when his partner was on the edge. The training they did almost had them both killed, and since it was in the snow drifts if you died out there, your teammates or the enemy where more or less likely to eat your corpse as a source of food if it was scarce. It wasn’t easy to calm the younger man down though, he was twitchy and highly strung, which was never really a good sign. When he was like that you knew something bad was on the horizon. The scout may not know it, but the engineer could read the warning signs that Baz picked up from their surroundings faster than any detailed electronics manual… kind of like an early detection system like the way a miner would carry a canary and would use them as a warning bell for gas leaks which he couldn’t smell. Von could sense it too, although he’d rather chain Baz to his medical bench and have a poke and prod with his insides than be bothered with what could be heading their way.  
  
There was a muffled slow clapping from the dead messengers chest screen. The administrator looked less than impressed, but was clapping with sarcasm since it was the first time anyone form either side of the battle really had the gaul to have a go at her for something other than prod-nosing into their personal affairs.  
  
“Congratulations Scout, you’ve just volunteered yourself to be the one responsible for keeping the recruits alive. If I hear that any of them have died in battle or in training while they are assigned to your base I will personally make your life a living hell. Do I make myself clear?”  
  
Baz stiffened, “Ah fuck I put my foot in it again didn’t I?” he whispered loud enough so only Chatter could hear. The Engineer nodded with the most unsympathetic smile on his face.  “Can’t get any worse now can it?” Chatter shook his head. Out loud Baz said, “OK so I’m the one who’s gotta make sure they live, if I can do it, you gotta promise NEVER to ship me off again to the cold front base!” he knew he was pushing it, but hell’s he could be in the shitter any deeper than he was now.  
  
There was a sound of deep unamusing clicking of a jaw. Finally the administrator responded. “If you fail you’ll be stationed there PERMENTLY for the rest of your life.” The word “Permanently” was said in such harsh tones it sent tingles down all their spines. “Good day gentlemen.” The screen flickered off.  
  
“Now why’d yer have ter go and do that for Baz? You know she’s going to get pissed at yer.” Chatter eyed his long standing team mate suspiciously.  
  
“I’m sorry, I could not help myself. On the seriea, you know full well what “on the job” training was like. I really had to say something it was just nagging at the back of my head.” The scout looked crestfallen.  
  
“I’d like ter think we’re more capable than that bunch of no hopin’ cattle thieves.” Chatter chimed with all seriousness. He tried to put a positive spin on it. “I mean we do have some trainable skills, like er’-” he waved his free hand that wasn’t resting on the scout’s shoulder around, “Frenchie ‘ere could teach stealth and deceit form behind enemy lines, I know a good thin’ or two ‘bout shootin’ and defending the post, you yerself know how ter heckle an enemy, know when and where to retreat and know all about reconnaissance and information gatherin’… and Von…” Chatter tried to think of a positive about the medic, but nothing was quite coming to mind at that point, as anything Von could teach would have nothing relevant to the training he was thinking of. “Von here could teach them the art of survival on ther battlefield…..” he’s voice trailed off. It was a slur on the medic he knew, but Von would never notice, and besides, if you didn’t already know what Von did in that sick bay (which was practically anything that you could morbidly imagine)  you’d find out pretty fast why you’d never want to get injured in this base.  
  
“Well we’ll find out after tomorrow.” Xeromus lit up a new smoke. “For now, we need to think of how to train them for combat. We don’t quite have the facilities… Except for the small shooting range under the battlements.”  
  
“Oh that part is easy.” Baz brighten up. “There’s an old training yard around the back of the fort with a bunch of old decapitated bots sitting around. I’m sure I can help Chatter reassemble some… and I saw some practice paint guns out there too, we could give them some “Off the field” practice with the bots, like they do in the facilities. And if they get wise to the old bots, we could throw a few of us in the mix just to make it challenging.”  
  
Chatter chuckled. “Wer’ll throw yer in mostly Baz, you’dve give them a run for their money.” He slapped the scout heartily across the back, which caused the light-weight to stumble forward. He was a bit happier to see the younger member perk up with a bit more interest in this new arrangement. While he was messing with re-programming the bots, Baz could test them out and burn off some of the excess energy left over from the battle the day before. It meant they were outside in the fresh air and out of the way of both Xeromus and Von and could unwind a little bit before the new faces arrived. To Chatter, it seemed like a fun filled afternoon with some light entertainment thrown in from the scout being used as target practice… besides anything to distract Baz from whatever was starting to bother him was better than watching the guy get all jittery and jumpy and rendering him practically useless if something was bad was to come.  
  
Tomorrow was looking brighter already.


	2. New Arrivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> new recruits are joining the BLU squad at teufort

The sun glinted off the large shuttle bus that had pulled up around the back of the BLU battlements. The first group of newbies had arrived. They were greeted by the four long-standing members and where lined up to some sort of attention with all their stuff in their hands, around their feet, where ever they had dropped it mostly waiting to be given the full introductory speech. The base dwellers, on the other hand where milling about, checking out the young-bloods, shaking hands and generally trying to make them feel as welcome as possible.

  
Baz was standing a little distance off slouched against a wall watching them, making mental notes on each of them before he headed over. He was watching Chatter greet the new comers heartily and excitedly as most Utahans do with sentences like, “So we ‘red yar’ll hail from?” and “What’s Yer’ expertise?”

  
All in all, there was only three who got off the bus.

  
They looked about 20 or older, although when Baz studied the new pyromaniac, he was at a loss for any sort of description as to what maybe potentially under all that gear, and seemed to radiate the feel of existing basic training. One had caught his eye though. It was the new scout, thin, short and way younger than Baz when he joined. He made a guess the average age for the boy was 16. Well, there’s gonna be a lot of hard work right there he knew, as most teenage males generally hate being told what to do, and think they know everything when they clearly know nothing at all. There was no way that scout was even ready to take on any of Baz’s on-field responsibilities, heck the kid looked like the only thing he knew how to do was run… oh well…whoa, hold on a second!

  
Baz stood to attention and stared at the new soldier and looked mortified. NO WAY was what he was thinking of could be in the box in the soldier’s hands… and yet, the box he was holding was sort of, oozing out of the bottom and dripping what looked like blood onto the sandy dirt.

  
He casually walked over to the man, who was roughly four years his JR, and asked out of the corner of his mouth, “Hey, whatchya got in that there box?”

  
The Solider, who Baz noticed had a human ear pinned to his jacket like a lapel badge (hard not to notice something like that, there was a large spreading blob of blood expanding around it), perked up at the sound of someone interested in his long-time hobby. “AH!” he shouted in his excitement. “I’ll bet this would interest a battle-hardened man like yourself!” He enthusiastically opened the box lid and shoved it right under the tall scout’s nose. The smell of rotting flesh filled every sinus instantly and Baz spun around and vomited. “What’s a matter with you?!” The soldier demanded, grabbing something out of the contents of the box and waving it in the air, “Haven’t you ever seen a collection of legs before?”

  
The other recruits reeled away from the soldier in mortified horror, the young scout in actual terror. Chatter had gone over to assist his pal, who was pretty much bringing up more than whatever he had eaten in the last few days and was cursing why the hell he had to ask.

  
“Normvally zey are attached to the person who ovned them, Mister Kingston.” Von pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he moved in closer to inspect the crazed man’s collection. “Vot elze do you collect?” the medic lifted another leg out of the box and examined it. It had previously belonged to a spy and even still had the shiny red shoe on the foot.

  
The soldier, referred to as Kingston, beamed with new found happiness at the new attention his collection was receiving. He dug around another box by his feet and produced a large Jar filled with pickled ears. “OH!” he exclaimed, “I also have a Jar of noses and one of Hands if you’re keen on those things too!”

  
The medic smiled a devious grin. “Vould you be az zo kind az to show me in my office later?” Von’s eyes sparkled as he burrowed through the box and held up the jar with disembodied fingers in it.

  
Xeromus coughed. It was about time he should intervene, although watching the medic finding delight in the soldier’s oddities while making everyone else’s stomachs churn was mildly amusing.

  
Chatter whispered in Baz’s ear, “yer shouldn’t have arsked, yer remember the LAST soldier we had ‘ere and how yer drew the short straw and had ter be the one thrown’ out his head collection?” he patted the scout on the back, in hopes he had stopped being sick.

  
“Don’t remind me, the nutter wanted MY head for doing so.” Baz managed to burble out. “Who thinks these sorts of whack-jobs are fit for service and not for a mental home anyway? I’d personally ding him along the side of the head if I ever met him face to face.”

  
Chatter tried to put a positive spin on the situation. “Wer’ll look on ther’ bright-side Baz, He’s clean up ther’ mess from our traps so we don’t have ter.” This got him a rather dirty look from the scout so he didn’t press the issue.

  
Xeromus looked at his small list of names. Still to arrive where the Russian, the Scotsman, and the Sniper, although in the Sniper’s case he was making his own way, having detoured towards the gravel pit due to an emergency call from the BLU team there. He was the only new team member to have any age and experience in combat, so they at least had someone who was coming who knew what the situation was going to be like.

  
So, who’d he have right now? He looked up at the three young men. Steve Kingston, the soldier had been in training for 2-3 years, but has had no battlefield experience, Yunai the pyro has been training for at least 4 years and maybe obsessed with fire and everything else flame-related since childbirth, also has a firebug conviction arrest list as long as the spy’s arm and then there was Lee, the scout.

  
Xeromus always wondered why certain classes spent at least over 2-3 years in training before assigned to the field, and the Scout class which SHOULD have at least a year or more on top of that seemed to only have a shilp-shlod affair with basics, especially since they had at least three times the responsibilities of any other member on a squad. He himself had spent a good 5 years learning to be a field spy and knew engineers needed at least 6, but the scouts were lucky if they were able to do training as long as a year. They were the least prepared of any of the classes, and it always was the reason why not many lived to the age of 20. He knew the reason; he just wanted to deny the knowledge of the matter. The truth was, it was hard to recruit scouts as they seemed to be head hunted by RED relentlessly, and they were always in demand in one way or another on every single base, so the basics where just conferred onto them and the rest was expected to be learned on the fly. Even Baz had half a year of basics and was shipped into combat as soon as he could blast a wooden target to pieces, and then was sent to be trained under another scout, along with Chatter (as when they were short one engineers, they shipped them out along with scouts in hopes that they may also pick the job up on the run, as far as some of the trainers where concerned, engineers on their own without their machines where just slower scouts anyway.. the BLU side apparently not giving too much thought into this sort of thing at all, the only major difference to them was that Engineer would have had a year’s worth of training with machines and not much else) without much thought as to them actually surviving out there.  
But they had, otherwise they wouldn’t still be here, about to make a new lot combat ready. Sometimes, Xeromus had to wonder what sort of things could have happened to them to make them the dangerous duo that they were together on the field. As a spy, he never had the opportunities available to have mateship with anyone on his squads, and that was generally due to the job description.

  
“Gentleman, you will be assigned your new quarters, and then you will proceed to Von’s medical office for a physical examination. We need to make sure you are all in top condition, and then after you have gone through that, you are to report to the shooting range in the lower base. Any questions?”

  
There was none from the newbies. They were either just wanting things to be over and done with, or it was the way the spy could raise one eyebrow and look intimidating that prevented the utterance of further sound. Only the scout looked slightly uncomfortable. It would have gone unnoticed, but the general rule of the universe is someone is always observing you as you are them, and this slight discomfort was picked up by Baz, who was pretty much always living on the edge, and always on the lookout for inconstancies and other unusual but failed at that point to register much on the “peculiar scale” as he had other things preying on his mind.

  
The recruits where lead to their accommodations. Lee was grateful that for the moment no one wanted to share the same room with the youngest, in case they had to be responsible for them. It was a relief really. Lee has a secret, and the longer it could be hidden, the better. Unfortunately, it was all going to unravel due to a stupid medical. Nature had been sparing when it came to giving out voluptuous features which made it easy to pass as a boy. Being flat chested and small, there was little shape to attempt to hide. At the recruitment office there were other woman, although few and far between. They were either rather busty and attractive and applying for medic positions, or down right clinically insane applying for pyros, soldiers and demomen , very few still chose the option for sniper. Being small, weedy and skinny, there wasn’t much available as options, but she wanted to prove to her family she was actually good at something in her life, so she signed for the first class she saw the papers for. What a stupid idea that was… the only training she got was in how to fire her weapon before she was packed up and shipped off to a base, with a bunch of random strangers. At each drop, the bus emptied, until there were the recruits whom she was going to be stationed with left. Now, alone and with none she could remotely socialize with without giving herself away, things where looking very bad indeed…she had realised on arriving she was the only girl on the base, and decided maybe revealing herself as such was not a good idea.  
Her ears pricked up as muffled conversation filtered in form the lodgings next door.

  
“Yer really should see Von after empting yer gut like that son.”

  
“Chatter, I don’t think I’m EVER going to feel right with the knowledge we have THAT in the base. You do realise how BAD that’s gonna smell don’t you?”  
“Werlp, at least it’ll keep Von of yer case. Think of it as a positive.”

  
“Thanks, but the thought of the two of them together having a good time over body parts do NOT make me feel any better. In fact the thought of limbs floating around the base makes me feel worse. You can’t tell me you’re comfortable with this.”

  
“To be honest with yer Baz, I’m not comfortable with it n’either. Not after being stationed at ColdFront. Ther’s some shit even I’d be happier without. But, each to ther’ own.”  
There was a groan. “Alright, alright, I’ll go see Von. If I’m not back in time, just start the shooting practice without me. We need to see how much they know before we go too crazy with those bot programs you devised.”

  
Lee saw her chance. She didn’t know where the medic bay was, and following someone there was better than not having the wretched medical. She slipped out the doorway just as Baz stepped out of the one next-door. He gave her a quick glance and started heading off. He paused. “yo, you coming or not? Aren’t you due for a medical?”  
Lee semi-jumped in place. How’d he know she hadn’t gone yet? Oh well, it was now or never.  
She fell into step behind the taller young man and followed him down the corridors towards the medic bay. Unlike before he wasn’t very talkative.  
“so, where you from?”

  
Ok, scratch the non-talkative part.

  
“Boston.” Lee lied. It was safer this way. If she was found out, they wouldn’t send her home, and she’d try her luck again the second she got a chance.

  
“Cheh, and I come from England. Pull the other one Kid. I can tell you’re from Seattle.” Baz had a faint smile.

  
Lee was surprised. He saw right through her lie, which now that she thought about it; wasn’t a good sign at all.

  
“Ya got the gist of it though kid I’ll give you that, never tell anyone exactly where you’re from.” This seemed to be said with a slight sound of impressiveness. “I’m from New York, but not the good neighbourhood.”  There was a flashed smile, but a very weary one. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this sort of thing; I don’t normally see new faces… well not for very long at any rate.” He stopped and held out a hand to shake hers as a peace offering. “Name’s Baz. Been doing this gig FAR too long. To be honest with ya, I’d rather have been wasting my time on the diamond back home at your age instead of jumping on the wagon to wind up in this dump. But once you join, you’re here to be shipped around as an expendable for life.” The sarcasm just stung his words like ice. “Since I’m gonna be glued to ya ‘till you are officially ready for service, I reckon we better get off on the right foot yeah?”

  
Lee shook his hand. Was it just her, or did Baz’s accent seem to thicken and thin out depending who he was talking to? He didn’t speak like this to Chatter when she over-heard them.

  
“So, what are ya running away from Slick?”

  
“Running from?”

  
Baz gave her an unusual stare. “Of course, you don’t expect me to believe a 16 year old teen is gonna jump into battle just because his mates are all doing it.”

  
“not running from anything. I really just wanted to make something of myself.” Lee decided to be honest. There was just no point lying to him, when he could see right through her.

  
“Boy you sure picked the wrong place to attempt that, Slick. Mind you, ‘Turtle fort’ isn’t as bad as some of the other places you could have wound up.” He slapped her playfully on the shoulder. It stung, but then Lee had to remember, as far as he was concerned, she was another male member of the team. She punched him in the arm.  
“Gee you need to get some muscles Slick, that didn’t even leave a mark.” Baz tapped Lee on the back. “I could even pop you like a board, and I’m not even that strong. Don’t worry, stick with me and you’ll be fine.” He stopped outside the medic bay and took a real deep breath. “You know, that soldier’s room isn’t anywhere near here and I swear I can still smell the pong.”

  
Lee laughed and relaxed. He was just trying to loosen up around a new person, and it was clear he had taken a shine to her. It would work in her favour at least, knowing that she had someone to at least converse with now.

  
“I don’t know how ya coped with that on the bus neither. That would have been suffocation central.” He continued.

  
“It kind of was, and there were two of them at one point.” Lee added.

  
“Man that would have reeked.”

  
“You know, you don’t have to talk to me like I’m some kind of punk you know. I do know I’m not really trained at all for this and want to you know I want be able to put up a fight. And for the record, I’m 18 not 16.” Lee glanced at him, now having worked out why he was talking to her differently to what he was the engineer before.

  
Baz gave her a long quite stare. “Ok so you figured me out Slick. I just wanted to know if you were anything like the guys I was in training with and had met on other bases.” He had dropped the thick and clearly on-for-show-accent. “The usual, all knowing but really know nothing at all. Although I’m not lying about that soldier, he gives me the skiv’s. I have never met one that didn’t but boy that guy takes the cake and then our medic just happens to add the icing.” He shuddered, “First thing you’ll ever learn Slick, is that even though the medic is meant to put you back together when you’ve been hurt on-field, they also enjoy pulling you apart again off-field in their spare time. Once you’re done in there, I’d advice to avoid it like the plague unless you really, REALLY have to.” He looked at the large swing doors. “I don’t really wish to go in there, but if I don’t Chatter’s going to be pissed. And I can’t imagine anything worse than him pulling out the medic kit and attempting stuff he knows nothing about on me.”

  
Baz kicked the door and it swung inward. The smell hit him and Lee both full in the face. Lee gagged and covered her nose and Baz almost passed out. Kingston, much to the joy of Von had handed over his collection to the medic to put in the cold storage for safe-keeping, but the smell of rotting flesh could never quite be removed, no matter how well you freeze severed limbs.

  
“You know, I think I’m just going to head off and lie down…” Baz sounded very faint. “I don’t’ care what Chatter says about seeing Von about it, He can go stuff a tomato as there is no way in hell I’m going to go in there.” He pulled himself up standing against the wall and dragged himself back the way they came. He was clearly going to be very ill after this day was all over. Lee frowned behind her hand, she didn’t want to go in there either, but she’d miss out of any training if she didn’t pass the medical. She drew herself up to her full height and pushed her way inside.


	3. Of Socks, Hats and Snipers

Von was sitting at small desk in the medic bay flicking through his notes. He always found medicals interesting, and always found that this gave him some fascinating personal information about his fellow team mates which he used to further their dislike for him. It wasn’t as if he wanted them to hate him, but he generally didn’t mind being disliked as it meant he was left alone to his own devices and allowed him time to tinker with his new medical breakthroughs, and leave him in peace to sing along to his favourite operas on the record player. He looked up at Lee who was now hovering over the desk, still with her hand over her nose.  
  
Ah yes... he still had to do something about that smell, didn’t he?  
  
“Vun moment please.”  
  
Von shuffled some more papers until he found Lee’s file. He thumbed through, Gave Lee a suspicious look over the top of his spectacles and looked at his records.  
  
“Ah very interesting, I zee you’re a young Lady?” He peered at her again. “But you don’t look like vun. Vhy would you try to hide, hmm?”  He pushed his chair back, unfolded himself from its comfort and walked around the scout. He jabbed her in the arm with the point of his pencil and muttered to himself, then poked her in the spine with it too. “Very interesting indeed.” His pitch kept changing as he was now in the midst of fascination. “ You’re Very thin…Vot do they feed you at zer academy? Not just bread and vater I hope. I see you alzo very flat, thought you could blend in now, hmmm?”  
  
“Er, more or less,”  Lee mumbled. “You’re not going to send me back are you? I’d like to stay and become a fighter if it’s all the same.”  
  
“Vot me?” Von looked honestly surprised. “Vhy should I? Vot have I got to gain?”  
  
“Uh, you have a point, Doc.”  
  
“Hmmm.” Von scrutinized her from every angle. “Vell, you zeem fine to me. However…” He turned and headed for a cupboard at the back of the office. Lee took this brief moment to glance around. The room was pretty sterile white, with big dirty bloodstains splattered here and there. She stopped looking. There was something about the unclean medical bay that made her feel ill at ease. Von has walked back over and handed her a pair of socks.  
  
“Doc?” Lee frowned.  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“I already have socks. Why are you giving me more?”  
  
Von slapped his forehead. “Zo zorry, vhey are for down there.” He coughs.  
  
“Yeah, socks go on feet, what’s your point?” Lee was beginning to think he was a few fences short a batting cage.  
  
Von shook his head. “you Vant to pass as a boy yes?”  
  
Lee nodded.  There was an awkward silence. She still couln’t see what he was getting at. Von rolled his eyes and let out a huge sigh. “You do not, and I stress zis vith vital importance if you vish zat state of affairs to continue, bulge where you should.” He looked rather stern. Surely the young lady was not going to have a gentleman like himself have to speak vulgar to explain it to her.  
  
She frowned, and then it clicked. “OH!” she covered her mouth again in surprise. “Oh yeah right sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that!” she blushed.  
  
Von waved it off. “Zink nothing ov it. You are fine ozer vise. I suggest you get a move avong.”  
  
Lee nodded and a relived expression crossed her face. “Thanks, Doc.” she turned to leave, grateful not to spend another minute in the foul stenching room.  
  
“Oh, avn Lee?”  
  
Lee spun around to look at the medic. He had a look of concern on his face. “Vord of advice. Don’t die. I can zee now zat you’ve made a bit of an impression on somvon already. Ve may not get on at zer best of times, but I’d alzo like to see you stick around.”  
  
“Ok doc. I’ll remember that.” Lee made a dash for it. In truth, she didn’t have a clue what he was on about, but she would remember it anyway.  
  
Baz had managed to lurch back to his quarters, and flop on the poor excuse bases had everywhere for a bed. He shared with Chatter, and it was pretty clear the engineer had dominated the whole room. Wiring, machinery and metal where lying around every on single available space. You couldn’t even tell the scout shared the same room. Truth was, Baz gave up carting his stuff around from base to base, so only kept hold of what he needed, guns, ammo, spare clothes….there was no point to keep much else, he was never in one place long enough. He glanced up at a small shelf that was just above the crib and then reached up to pull off the only thing that he bothered to keep with him since he first joined. He played with it in his hands for a while. It was one of the few things he had that was sentimental. Sure, his sandman was, chatter made that for him, but this was…different. This was more than just cemented friendship. It was personal.  
  
The cap was old, greying a falling apart, fraying along the brim and had a pair of blue goggles perched atop the top, one was cracked and the other was missing the metal riming. Chatter had offered numerous times to fix it, and so had his wife, but Baz had held out. It was important it was unchanged. It belonged to someone who he spent half his life thinking of as a hero and to him, still was even long after he had been killed. It was unthinkable to him to fix something that really was unfixable. You couldn’t bring a person back from the dead.  
  
Right now, he wondered what the bloke would think of him if he was still alive, about to take on the same responsibility he too once had. Maybe he’d think he was a fool? No, there wasn’t a place for that sort of thought ever in the guy’s head as he could remember. He’d be thinking Baz was doing the right thing.  
  
Too bad Baz didn’t feel like that was the case. He still wished he had kept his mouth shut. He was not looking forward to seeing the demoman and the heavy when they showed up. They would be a lot older than him, and less likely to listen. He was aware he was going to but-heads with Kingston already, as the soldier was going to be a huge obstacle wether he wanted him to be or not.  
  
 In truth there were a lot of things Baz hated, most was the whole idea of a classing system, and then he’d go into hating certain people by class-by-class basis. To be honest he didn’t like many in his own either. Arrogant, pig-headed, jovial idiots. But there were some exceptions. He disliked enemy engineers and some of the ones one the Blu side, but he’d take a bullet onslaught to protect someone like Chatter. No matter what class he was, someone like him was irreplaceable to Baz. Sometimes, it’s the person and not their class that mattered. Baz hated spies and medics respectfully, but even though Von and Xeromus where not quite likeable but you could trust them with your life. Pyros where pretty decent, Baz never really ever found one who wasn’t happy to be given lighters and other flammables for gifts as a thank you for saving your arse, and after a while you could get the jest of what they were mumbling and became the official pyromaniac translator for the team. Snipers, Baz could give or take them, like engineers, it depended on the person. Chatter’s wife Irene was a sniper, a rather good one and he really liked her… and her cooking. His hero however was killed by one. He and chatter had a general rule about getting along with the sniper on the base, especially when they have had to assist in a call-out. Snipers where like a second pair of eyes and ears on a battlefield, and what Baz couldn’t see on ground level, they could see from above, and vice versa. Chatter on the other hand liked the constant banter between the scout and sniper as it allowed him to know where to place teleports, sentries, dispensers and the best places to set up an ambush of dangerous machinery.   
  
Occasionally you got a call out to the same places and if you were lucky, some of the same faces were around. Unfortunately, as the hired help, you mostly did your job and left leaving without any chance to get to know any of those faces. You always did your best for those kinds of jobs as chances are you were asked as the team who needed assistance had heard about you from somewhere and knew you were skilled in an area that they we not. In the end, this lead to Baz and Chatter knowing a lot of snipers, and both of them could tell them all apart... well the ones that they managed to bump into or more than once.  
  
Baz gave one really good toss of the hat, caught it as he sat up and fixed it on his head.  “Well Laurance, I need you to give me all the help I can get. And if you’re watchin’ this from where ever you are if you don’t lend me a few tricks from your sleeves I’m never going to forgive you Bro.”  
  
He knew he had missed the training session for the day, but there was no way he was going to miss eating dinner and getting to know the new team more. That was a major part of his job in general, to know everyone and get along with them to some degree. The last thing he needed was to be in battle and shouting out what was going on and to have a teammate not responding in the correct way. He knew too well the end results of that kind of behaviour… and the battle grounds all over the place where littered with the corpses of those who were not quick enough to listen, call for help or back down and retreat when things got out of hand.  
  
He stepped out of his shared quarters and walked headlong into another person.   
  
“Oh, Sorry mate, was kind of lost in my own little world for a minute. ‘ere you wouldn’t happen to know if this is the 2fort base?”  
  
Baz blinked. On a whole most of the Australians he met sounded the same, but there was subtle differences depending where they were from. This one was voice he was all too familiar with, the Occa not as thick indicating the owner of it hailed from Western Australia.  
  
“Damien? I thought you were stationed at The Granary!?” Baz exclaimed mostly out of sheer surprise, and partly out of happiness that the sniper was someone he actually knew.  
  
The man tipped his hat back, and took a few moments to register who was speaking to him.  “’ittle Bazza? Well Fuck me dead it is you! I don’t believe you’re still bloody floating around! ‘Ere, it old Flat-chat the tradie still with you or is that a stupid fucking question?”  
  
“Yeah, Chatter’s still with me. How come you’re here?  Not paying you enough money over there?” Baz couldn’t hide his smile for the life of him.  
  
“I got re-assigned. I’m now a part of your squad, you little shit-stirrer.” Damien grinned. “You know every time you guys where called out to us, you’d cause so much trouble the shit always hit the fan. I still remember the LAST time. Struth ‘n’ oath mate, you really made Chicken-legs and Grumpy old fart so pissed you couldn’t see the whites of their eyes for weeks! They certainly had the shits something fierce.”  
  
Baz snorted. “It’s not hard to make Macca and Chase mad. They are already trying to tear each other apart piece by piece, by the looks of things.” Macca and Chase were the Granary’s scout and engineer. The two were not the greatest company, Macca being so far up-himself he was in danger of coming out the other side, and Chase was just too old and too belligerent to see things from anyone else’s point of view. Baz could remember them quite clearly, neither of them could communicate worth a damn, and that’s why Chatter and himself where called there in the first place.  
  
“Yeah, neither of them could plan a solid root in a brothel.” The sniper muttered, getting a good laugh out of Baz in the process. “They could have learned a thing or two off the two of yer’s. Decent enough blokes on their own but shit, fuckin’ put them both in the same room and its world war frickin’ whatever all over again mate.” The sniper sighed. “Boring as shit if you asked me. At least you and Flat-chat actually get along and can hold a conversation. Those two wouldn’t know of one if it smacked them around the back of the fucking head.”  
  
Baz patted the marksman on the back. “Well, just be happy you’re now here with us instead.”  
  
“Cor’ blimey spud, you’ve got no idea. I’m lookin’ forward to seeing what shit you get up too. No offence mate, but you always where one to put the boot in and find it kicking you up the arse hours later.”  
  
“Don’t remind me.” The scout frowned. “I’ve said something stupid and now if I screw up I’m shipped to Coldfront.”  
  
“Well Fuck me dead Bazza, what they hell did you do this time?” The sniper Grinned maniacally. This was going to be entertaining.  
  
“I’ll explain on the way to the mess hall.” Baz looked like someone had kicked him in the guts. At least someone was going to find amusement out of the whole thing, even if it was at his expense.


	4. Bonding

The walk down to the shooting range the next morning for lee was rather awkward. For starters, she had to move her legs around in a different way so she didn’t catch the socks. Trying to find a place to hold them in the spot had been easy, just one loose end tucked into the belt, but it was getting hard to stop them from unravelling and going down her trouser leg. She couldn’t at this point, imagine trying to run anywhere without having this creepy feeling of socks going down her font.  
  
She had heard that both the Heavy and the Demoman had arrived during the night, and she had made the acquaintance of the sniper during last night’s dinner in the mess hall so she was aware now that the real training was going to start. This she was looking forward too, as herself didn’t have much in the way of any experience whatsoever and was eager to see what the others knew she could learn from them.  
  
She stopped in the corridor to adjust herself. How the hell do boys put up with this?  
  
“Moring Slick.” Baz walked past, and knocked the hat off the top of her head and continued on towards the range. There was a brief glance back and what she assumed was a devious smile. He stood at the end of the corridor and the door to the shooting range where sounds of yelling and arguing where already emitting from. “You’re running late Slick,” he indicated towards the noise. “Missing out on the party.”  
  
“Your late too I see.” She countered. He shrugged.  
  
“I’ve been up working all night. I after all still have a job to do around here when it’s quiet.” He yawned. “Chatter told me to get some sleep but I couldn’t miss another one of these things. I’m a bit rusty too.” The last words where said with such fake innocence Lee’s face soured. He was being an arse, just to upset her. It was working too.  
  
"When I kill a man, I want to see his gibs at my feet! A shotgun doesn't make my enemies go boom!"  
  
“Dis gun, she is slow and too clean. I like to kill fast an’ not so cleanly.”  
  
They both walked in to see a huge argument unfolding between The Engineer, Sniper, Soldier and the newly joined Heavy- who was also known as Moriz – about how affective secondary weapons where in combat. By the sound of it, someone had threatened Chatter, and Damien was at this point looking to stab some arrows into someone. Only Yunai was watching, there was no sign of the Demoman, assuming he was able to still stand after drinking so much the night before. The Pyro spotted Baz entering and started to explain.  
  
“Mrrumfh mumble murgghiphph mugglieng frrumph furr phwmpoh!” the pyro exclaimed.   
  
Lee looked confused; she looked at the other scout, who had a fixed frown on his face. Whatever had been said, clearly he wasn’t impressed by it.  
  
“Mgrrmph mummmumph Muttergpumph.”  
  
“Me, get involved in that? Are you kidding me?”  
  
“Itgggtfh dmum ohmmhgy mahy mufffh moph hempfh!”  
  
Baz let out a sigh. “Oh all right. What’s the argument over?” The pyro raised a shotgun.  Baz rolled his eyes. “To think that some of you only think of it as a backup weapon you’ll never use.” He gave Lee a playful nudge. “Ok Slick, take it and show me what you’ve got.”  
“Me?” Protested Lee, her voice almost blocked out over the fighting. “I don’t know how to use that!”  
  
“What’s your primary, Slick?” Baz pinched the bridge of his nose. Surely he could not be THAT dumb.  
  
“A Scattergun.” Lee replied.  
  
“And a Scatter gun basically is?” Baz prompted hopefully.  
  
“Oh, Really?” Lee looked surprised; she really knew nothing about weapons. “It’s like a miniature version, right?”  
  
“Not exactly, more like a modified sawn-off. A real sawn-off would be the double barrel Force-a-Nature, which believe me, really is rather nasty for one of those.” Baz grinned. The Force-a-Nature was his favourite gun, due to the high knock-back it had from the shorter shot-gun barrel and the extra force from the high level of gun powder he shoved in there. It was a harder thing to reload on the fly, but he found so many ways to abuse the knock-back in and out of combat he wouldn’t go anywhere without it. “Just point and shoot at the target, Slick.”  
  
KRCK BOOM!  
  
The sound of the shot filled the shooting range, and everyone had fallen silent. Chatter looked over and smiled, relieved Baz was now there, Damien tipped his hat back in surprise and let out, “Well fuck me.”, both Kingston and Moriz exchanged blank stares.  
  
Lee had been slightly knocked back on her feet but had cleanly decapitated the head off the closest target. Her face was a mixture of shock and surprise. Yunai was clapping; highly impressed the scout had managed to stay on his feet after such a forceful shot.  
  
“Melfp Ummn!” Yunai gave Lee a thumbs up.  
  
Baz coughed. “You two have seemed to forget that other classes have primaries that are just as powerful as your secondaries, EVEN at point blank range. They WILL know how to use them, and so should you. Learn your weapons, and you’ll know how to protect yourself from those same in kind.” He slouched and looked smug. “How’d that feel Slick?” he asked. “Bet you’re a crack-shot with that Scatter too.” He winked. Lee’s face flushed, and she tugged the cap down into her eyes to hide it. She was already embarrassed, and his appraisal made it worse.  
  
“Son, I’m glad yer’ made it after all ther’ ‘ard work yer’ where doing last night.” Chatter sighed. “Was getting’ worried I’d hav’ to do this all merself again.”  
  
“I’m sorry for yesterday Chatter.” Baz yawned. “And I’m sorry about last night. Xermous had asked me, so I had a bit of a look around outside.”  
  
“I swear that spy has yer’ runnin’ around laps fer’ him.” Chatter grumbled. “I know that’s yer’ job an’ all but ther’s got to be a limit.” He walked up and patted the scout on the back, which produced another yawn. “I’m glad yer’ now here thou’ as yer’ have far more know-how when it comes to general ‘rms.”  
  
“That’s a lie and you know it, Mister ‘ Ins-and –outs of every weapons technical specifications, modifications and upgrades known to man.’”  
  
“Werl’ what do yer’ expect me to have done when we we’re trapped in snow for months at a time all them years back?” He poked the younger man. “It took a lot of effort to keep the likes of yer’self  distracted for hours at a time so yer’ didn’t get up to mischief.”  
  
Baz raised his hands in an attempt to de-attach himself from the blame. “This isn’t getting any training done is it?” he was laughing and stopped himself as everyone was now watching him and the engineer, in hopes that they might actually know what they were all supposed to be doing. He looked up at everyone in the shooting range and realised he was the centre of attention- which while every scout dreams of being- Baz wished he could make himself vanish into thin air. He had some idea of what he wanted them to do though… and he thanked Ivan the squad’s previous heavy silently in the back of his mind for all the hours the guy put into taking Baz aside and running through every single class weapon he’d ever come across on the combat field.  
“OK I guess you all have some basic training with all your weapons yes?”  
  
There was a general nodding and mutterings of “Yes, of course.” and the like from the rest of the squad.  
  
“Has any of you ever tried using a weapon from another class?” Baz knew the answer without even waiting for it. None of them would have. It was something they never taught you, something you never really thought about until one of them is pointed a few inches from your nose in a fight. Baz walked over to a small table which has most of all the class weapons sitting on it. He spotted one that would get them to at least pay attention. He reached down and lifted (ok lifted is not quite the word here, more like wrestled) a huge one barrel mini-gun off the floor. There was a general sniggering from Moriz and Kingston who were both grinning and just waiting for the scout to drop the massive thing on one of his feet. Baz knew they were getting a kick out of it, but they won’t be laughing in a few minutes. Ivan used to make him lift his Iron Curtain all the time, till he realised it was easier to give the scout a go at the Tomislav as at least he could hold and fire the thing at the same time without dropping it the second the gun spun up, even if it was only a few inches off the ground.  
  
Baz swung the Mini-gun fiercely while holding his balance and tore right into 3 targets with one round. The gun was still spinning as the wood splintered and shattered as the sheer force of the rapid fire bullets pelted them.   
  
Yunai cheered, Lee watched in ewe and now had a new found interest in what else the other scout might be able to do with those weapons, Kingston was greatly impressed, he never assumed much from Baz to begin with, but now had a small amount of admiration and Moriz blinked in shock as he’d never thought anyone besides himself could lift the gun let alone be able to fire it.   
  
“Word of advice,” Baz was now grinning like a crazed maniac, “Learn to use as many weapons as possible. You never know when yours might malfunction or run out of ammunition during a fire-fight and the only thing that will determine wither you live or die is only a matter of picking up another weapon of a dead enemy.” He plonked the Tomislav down with such a thud he nearly caught his toes. His arm muscles where on fire after holding onto such a weight for just a short period of time. “also, knowing other weapons and knowing how to use them allows you to know how to prevent yourself being killed by them in combat. Chances are your foe will have similar weapons to what we have here, there’s very few out there that are hard to come by and find a counter for.” He rubbed the soreness in his arms. “I’d like you guys to train with a few other weapons before lunch in the mess, if you don’t know how to use one, ask someone who does all the time. After that, we’ll move onto some moving- thinking targets outside.”  
  
The new recruits all walked over to him and the weapons assortment on the table, carefully handling other killing machines they never would normally touch or ever fire, a few of them giving hints to others as to how to use them, and one or two going off to practice on some wooden targets.  
  
Damien stood next to Chatter and watched, unable to find the words to explain what had come over the rest of the squad. He nudged the engineer, “I’ve always said you’ve found a real live one Flat-Chat, mate.” He saw a smile spread over Chatter’s stubbled mug. “I’ve been around a lot of scouts in my time but struth, this one has actually got fuckin’ brains. I know what he sounds like on the battlefield and fuck me mate, he could lead and direct a bloody army a few hundred strong! How the fuck did he only class as a fric’ken scout and not a bloody soldier?”  
  
“It’s the upbrinnin’, that’s what it is.” Chatter mused. “’Corse yer’ got to admit, yer can tell he’s had good teachers.” The engineer said the last part with a sense of pride. It wasn’t always like this. He could remember back to when his long time partner was timid and couldn’t even wield a gun correctly. 7 years of beating him on the anvil of life, that’s what it was and it was starting to show now he was given a role of responsibility. Or course, it only takes one thing to send it all sliding backward, just as it took one thing to turn a timid 18 year old into a ball of fire fuelled anger and lash out and kill someone. Some shit should be just left and buried. Chatter shook the thoughts out of his head.   
  
They both watched as Yunai was showing Lee how to operate the back burner, The pyro holding onto the fuel pack as the weight would only cause the small scout to fall over backwards under the weight, and Kingston had been taking shooting tips form Baz about the scout’s most favoured weapon, the Force-a-nature while in turn, he was being shown how to operate the soldier’s rocket launcher. Moriz was picking up the odd pistol and taking a few pot-shots with them, and looking a bit more comfortable wielding a smaller weapon than his huge Natasha for a little while.  
“Werl’ this ain’t getting those bots up and runnin’” Chatter muttered happily. “I still have three un-programed, The mech’ mostly as I can’t over ride it’s sentry control functions fer’ an emergency, The scout has a rather’ predictable progammin’ movement yer’ can see a mile away an’ a few other missin’ things in its original AI and a sniper, the only one without a head. Can’t have a ‘eadless bot runnin’ around the field, that’s just plain ridiculous.” Chatter mused, “Corse, I’m always lookin’ fer a challenge.”  
  
Damien watched a little bit longer after the engineer had walked out of the range. Eventually he was about to go off himself when Baz eventually walked up alongside, leaving the recruits to themselves.    
  
“Pretty impressive Bazza, like fricken’ magic.” The sniper expressed his amusement at the situation. “You have them eating out of your hands, how the hell did you do that?” Damien indicated towards Moriz and Kingston specifically, “I mean, me and Flat-Chat couldn’t wrangle the bastards, then you, Knock-Back-Jack waltz in with Skippy ‘ere, speak to the Arse-Burner* and within’ minutes, you have the two of them eating out of your hand like hungry Galas**!”  
  
Knock-Back-Jack huh? Baz mused. First time he ever heard anyone give him a nickname besides Chatter’s Irene before. Normally it was “Baz” or “Bazza” (or “ Lill’Slugger” – from Irene) which was just about liveable as far as he was concerned.  
  
He shrugged. “Just got to know how to work a crowd. Besides, Soldiers and Heavies are similar most places you go, you should know that, they are all trained the same and have similar mentalities, sure no two are alike, but there are a few things you can do to leave an impression.” He glanced back and grinned, Both Kingston and Moriz where getting along famously with Yunai and Lee, all of them getting a laugh and a chuckle as they held the Tomisalv at a decent height for Lee to actually fire it. The small scout’s eyes had lit up full of curiosity and general excitement knowing full well this would be the only time she’d ever get to use that sort of weapon.  
  
“Think of it as a team bonding exercise.” Baz looked back at the sniper and slapped him hard on the shoulder. “Something that squads should do occasionally to avoid friction between each other that’d help them work as a team when it counts. You and I have been on enough teams in the past where there’s so much tension in the air on our own side it’s amazing anyone manages to survive.”  
  
Damien nodded. The scout had a point. His last squad at the Granary got along like a house on fire, especially Macca and Chase. Yelling, screaming, people running around like headless chooks… he was surprised they never really lost anyone.  
  
“Yer’reckon they know how to work together?”  
  
“No. That they don’t teach in the training manuals.” Baz frowned. “We both know it. The only one who would have some clue in that general area would be Moriz, and that’s because they occasionally pair medics with heavies to see which ones are more suited for mass-pushes and who’s more suited to roam.” He flashed a smile. “It will be interesting to see how quick they get the idea of it though.” He sighed and yawned. The lack of sleep was catching up. “We’ll find out how quickly after lunch, man…I am SOOO starved!”  
  
Damien chuckled at the scout. One thing hadn’t changed since the last time they crossed paths… The younger man still had hollow legs.  
  
 _*Knock-back-Jack refers to my in-game force-a-nature, Arse-Burner refers to Lexi’s BackBurner and Skippy refers to a famous old Australian tv show based on the adventures of a boy and a Kangaroo._  
 _**Gala – a native Australian bird: can also be used as in insult, as in “YOU FUCKIN’ GALA!” meaning idiot._


	5. Bot Bashin'

The recruits had now slowly made their way outside into the makeshift training yard. It had tons of little nooks-and-crannies to hide in, plenty of places to plan surprise attacks and above all else, heaps of open space. Standing amongst it was several Bots dressed in Red and smeared and slightly splattered in what appeared to be blue paint.  
  
Yunai grabbed Lee gleefully, excited that they were going to be paintballing the bots for practice, the pyros muffled chirps of excitement where lost on the scout, who even though had spent all her lunch break with the Pyromancer, still could not fathom what on earth they were talking about. Yunai must have figured since Baz could understand every word, Lee could too. She couldn’t rely on Baz to translate for her either, since not long after sitting down, an over-excited Kingston wanted to show the other scout just how much he enjoyed the other’s company by showing him another part of his collection, a jar of eyeballs. The table had evacuated very fast after that.  
  
Chatter had stepped out from his platform, spotted the recruits and gave them a wave. He was high up on a ledge, where he had all the controls set up and could see where everyone one was, and what they were doing so he could move the bots in accordingly. Damien was making his way for the platform, while Baz was filling the rest of the squad on what they were planning to do. The scout explained that they were going to try and function as a team to take down the bots. Each bot had a different health level so different amounts of strategy were required to take them on. The guns on both sides where filled with coloured paint so you could tell if you had hit or had been hit, and that Yunai’s flame thrower could spray a small amount of paint to represent flame, for reasons of safety. Then came the interesting bit, that once they knew what everyone was capable of, they were going to turn the bots up and increase the auto-aim to make it more of a challenge. The recruits liked this idea, except for Lee, who had no bot training before what-so-ever and knew that she was going to have her arse handed to her repeatedly for the next hour or so.  
  
Lee grabbed Baz’s shirt. “Hey since I have no training in this at all, are you going to run anything past me?”  
  
The older scout paused, smiled and gave her a noogie. “I don’t expect anything at all from you Slick.” He was honest and brutal with his comment. “I just want to see what you can do. You and I will have some extra training to do afterwards when I see what you really need to learn.” Which I can tell will be a lot, I bet my life on it, he thought to himself.  
  
Lee went from shock to annoyance in one straight emotional swing. “YOU JUST WATCH ME! I’LL SHOW YOU!” she growled at the older scout, grabbed a paint-gun replica of a scatter gun and stormed off into the field. The other three looked at Baz in sheer puzzlement wondering what he had said. Baz tilted his head and slouched, casually folding his arms. Lee glanced backward at him, still peeved, and became more so when she noticed his little smirk had not gone away. I’ll show you, you-you smart-arse! She shouted inside her head, her anger bouncing off the walls of her brain.  
  
“You’re gonna learn the first lesson the hard way.” Baz mumbled when out of earshot, still smiling to himself. “Even I had to. But lucky for you it’s amongst the safety of a good team, not on the battlefield and not with an awfully nasty squad.” He thought briefly about the old Cold Front base 7 years ago and snorted, keeping himself poker-faced. “Emotions will bog you down and you’ll make some bad choices because of it. I hope you can learn to control those feelings and make the right decisions. People’s lives will depend on them eventually.” His expression softened. That reminded him, he needed to have a small talk with Von about Ivan. Ever since the spy told him he missed that blasted RED scout - the one that killed the old heavy- he’d been feeling rather guilty about it, blaming himself that if he was in a position to see the fight better rather than diddling around trapping the others, the guy would have made it to his own retirement party. They had it all planned, strip-joint, pub crawling, the works. It bothered him immensely that he hadn’t thought about how Von was coping after losing a buddy whom he had worked and fought alongside most of him life with. Yeah sure, the medic gave him the creeps, but he was still a human being.  
  
He walked over towards Chatter and Damien and looked out over the platform, where you could see the whole training area and where everyone was. He fiddled with his head gear and stared intently into the dust and the dirt below and at the small blu team running out into a mock-combat. Chatter was concentrating, moving bots around with the control station at his fingertips, a smile never leaving his rugged face. Damien stood quietly in observation, occasionally glancing at Baz, who was shouting out random things about what was going on, even though the others could see them too. The scout was tensed, his left hand jinking at the fingertips, jittery all over, and yet he was still intently watching the battle below. Damien had only ever been acquainted with Baz a few times and was still not used to the unnerving presence of the younger man when the cogs where clearly spinning under that hat of his… it was like he was mentally trying to hold onto a container of wriggling worms. Macca, the scout he was more or less used to was full of beans and explosive all the time, like a ticking time bomb. Baz was well, more or less his opposite – that is until you heard him directing and recounting in combat- or ever seen the weird behaviour he was displaying right now. Under it all though, was a very intelligent and devious mind which is what made Baz and Macca so different, and made Baz such a find. In some respects the sniper admired Chatter for having the younger guy as team mate for so long without completely cracking, but the scout did leave an impression of a very good strong friendship with the engineer which was something rare to find in any squad.  
  
He glanced at the Engineer who was fully engaged with controlling the bots from the large console infront of him, smiling as he co-ordinated all the attacks down below from his viewing spot from above. There was a conversation going on between them, but the Australian was finding it hard to follow. Again, it had to be something Chatter had gotten used to while being around the scout, as Damien swore the kid was holding two conversations at once with the man, slightly out of sync with each response but  still making enough sense that the engineer could still coherently follow.  
  
“Irene sent another care package, Bless ‘er soul.” Chatter looked up, watched the action for a bit, and then moved a few leavers around.  
  
Baz frowned still fixated on the battle.  “The red base is empty. We had a look around me and Xeromus and there were no signs of life at all.”  
  
“Yer’ mean they vanished?” Chatter, now snagged on the last sentence looked up again and this time held his gaze in Baz’s direction.  
  
“I saw the package; did she send another of her famous Rhubarb pies?”  
  
Chatter’s brain was working up to speed, if he wanted to steer the conversation onto the more pressing topic of the red team, he had to get the scout to focus on one thing at a time. Picking certain sentences out of the air was fine, but something was important about the scout’s last remark that just didn’t add up.  
  
“No, yer’ can take ‘nouther guess.”  
  
“Empty, as in they left in a REAL hurry. It was a real state over there, papers, weapons, everything just abandoned. I even walked right up to several sentry guns and touched them. It was rather eerie.” The scout leaned forward and laughed. “Damn that soldier’s very smart with his rockets down there. I hope you’re making the programed bots attacking him a lot harder each time he knocks them down. Yunai seems to need some help with sneak attacks but is holding out very well despite it all.”  
  
A few leavers where pulled again and a few switches flickered on and off. “Yer’ think they’re plann’ somethin’ over there?”  
  
“Oh I dunno, It can’t be her amazing ground-cooked spit roast, the box was way too small, and meat doesn’t keep well out here, cooked or not.” He flinched slightly. “Yeowch! That has to hurt! Lee REALLY should learn not to try and attack from the front. That last hit was nasty!” he mused. “It’s nice to see Kingston looking out for him down there, but it should be the other way around.”  
  
“Ha, no, yer’ know she’d be savn’ that for the next time she sees us. Nah, she sent some more things for mayh sentry programmin’ and some new baseball magazines for yer’ ter’ read.” Chatter laughed. “Yer’ know she spoils yer’ like yer’ we’re our own son.”  
  
“We’re gonna go back and check it over to see if it was all a set up, I mean, there’s times where we up and leave a base for company events, call outs and the like, so maybe they do as we over there? It’s possible. It was just so strange that we haven’t even seen anyone snooping around on their recon of late, so we thought we’d investigate.” Baz jerked suddenly, grabbed his ear-piece and tore it off dropping it, grabbing his ear. “WOAH! That kid has a set of lungs!”  
  
It occurred to Damien who had been watching the odd communication between them that the scout had been also listening in to the recruits on the com. No wonder you could see the wheels turning behind those eyes and why he was trying not to jump around, he was mentally doing four things at once!  
  
Chatter was laughing. He could see on the small bot cams on the console who Baz was referring too. Good thing this was only practice, otherwise the poor kid wouldn’t have a head.  
  
Baz leaned right over the platform now, conversation forgotten and attention purely fixated on the recruits below.  Damien had also moved close to the edge, trying to work out who they were referring too. It didn’t take long before he spotted the other scout picking himself up and stumbling until he regained balance.   
  
“Fuck’n hell, how many times has Skip been hit?” he exclaimed. From where they were standing, the other scout looked completely green, which indicated that they’d been hit a lot by the bot’s paint guns.  
  
“Repeatedly.” Chatter spoke up, moving more things around. “ Yer’ think the boy has a death wish.”  He eyed Baz and shook his head. “Why does that sound so familiar?”  
  
There was another scream through the scout’s headset that was on the floor, so loud that it caught all three men by surprise, Chatter pulling on one of the bot’s kill switches, Damien jumping out of his skin, knocking Baz over the edge of the platform. Damien leaned over the rail in hope that the scout hadn’t fallen and broke his neck when he went over and was surprised to see Baz holding onto some of the metal rigging, legs dangling very high off the ground.  
  
“You all right there mate?”  
  
“Does it look it?”  
  
“Ah Fuck me dead. Hang on, we’ll get you a ladder or something.”  
  
“No need.” Baz started swinging his body till his legs flung against another part of the platforms supports and hauled himself up like a rock climber. He grabbed the sniper’s offered hand to be fully pulled up onto the ledge.  “Funny how all those wasted years my mother put me through gymnastics came in handy. I used to hate her so much for it until I found out how useful it had been.” He brushed himself off.  “It’s amazing how great being flexible really is and how much you appreciate it when you grow up with brothers who invented new ways to torture you every day.”  
  
“Cor’ Blimey mate, you’re clan sound rather fucked up.” The sniper murmured.  “Mind you, I’m not surprised, there’s not a single person you meet out here without a bit of a story to tell.”  
  
Baz shrugged. “What can I say? My mother believed if she kept trying she’d eventually get a girl, and after 10 boys she gave up after having me.”  
  
“You must have given the poor sheila hell.”  
  
“HA! You don’t know the half of it!” Baz grinned mostly to himself. He didn’t have much to do with his family these days. The only one who was worth being around had been dead for years, and Baz always felt guilty he wasn’t game enough to go and visit where he was buried, mostly because he hated that base so much. He patted himself down making sure all relevant bits where intact and headed for the bots sitting in the corner that we being unused, sat the scout up, and started trying to pull the red shirt off it.  
  
Chatter was now laughing heartily at the scout, while the sniper looked confused. “What the hell are you doing mate?” Damien scratched his forehead under his hat.  
  
“What does it look like? I want to see how good they are against a ‘living’ opponent. They’re getting wise to the machines down there and I just want to… you know, shake things up a little bit.”  
“Yer’ just couldn’t ‘elp yerself could yer’ Baz?” Chatter sniggered and shook his head. He knew it wouldn’t take long for Baz to want in on the action, especially since the battlements had been awfully quite of late. It was after all only natural for him to do so. “Damien, would yer’ mind callin’ Lee up ‘ere? I think the kid’s had a‘nough.”  
  
The sniper nodded and headed down the stairs low enough to be in shouting range, but still high enough to be out of the paintballs. “THAT’S ENOUGH SKIPPY! YOU CAN GIVE IT A REST NOW, WE NEED TER’ SHOW YOU SOME THINGS!” he yelled.  
  
While they were pre-occupied, Baz found something in the bot’s pocket. He examined it and his eyes lit up with pure deviousness. “Well I’ll be darned….” He murmured, grinning like an idiot. “That explains why there’s no spy bot amongst this lot and why the programming made no sense.” He flicked open the pocket-watch and mused, before flicking it closed and putting it in his own pocket. He had an idea now of some tricks he could pull with that thing. He looked up when he heard Lee’s footsteps up the stairs to the platform, pulled his shirt off, slipped the red one on and walked past him knocking off Lee’s hat on one swift movement, then tossing his own back to the kid, Lee catching it just in time before it hit the ground. The other scout was pretty much caked in green paint from head to toe bar his hands and looked like a furious monster when Baz winked, fixing the deep blue cap on his own head.  
  
 “Oi!” Chatter gave Baz a dirty look as the scout shot him a smile. “None of yer’ fancy-pants tricks out there, yer’’ere me son?” He folded his arms to stress his point. “ Remember yer’ got the battle experience that ther’ don’t so stick to melee only, none of ye’r hecklin’.” Chatter’s voice rang with a warning that if Baz stepped out of line on this one there was going to be trouble later.  
  
The scout rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah sure, No problem, you worry too much.” Baz shook his head and picked up his bat which looked like it was heavily dinted, splitting and held together by the material tied to it at the top, “You just cover me an escape route if things get hot under the collar.” He leaned over Lee’s shoulder and whispered, “And you just watch me, they ain’t gonna lay a FINGER on me.” He teased, making Lee spin around and try to hit him, missing as he was faster and smart enough to see her reaction from miles away. He laughed and threw himself over the edge of the platform, leaping down the rocks on the nearest side to his landing and sliding down into the fight zone. Lee leaned over the edge and watched as he cartwheeled the final landing, and dived right into the frey.  
  
“You’re bloody lucky those bots don’t use live ammunition Skippy.” Damien said, standing beside her. “You’d be fucking dead right now.”  
  
“Look, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do!” Lee growled at the sniper. “I could get a single shot in at all!”  
  
Damien looked frustrated. He was not in the mood for an attitude, not from a teenager. He was hoping he’d not have to put up with any since he was far away from his old teams scout and wasn’t too impressed. He grabbed Lee by the shoulder and swung him around to look at the battlefield. He leaned in and said, “ Fucking watch what Baz does ok? For starters, you’re doing it all bloody wrong. Not everyone can attack from the fuckin’ front - I sure as hell can’t - Flat-Chat and Pyro-Nutt  can’t and Bazza wouldn’t be able to neither unless he’s got an opening and that’s fuckin’ rare I’ll tell ya now Skippy.” Damien let out a sigh. “Didn’t they teach you anything? Like about priority targets and the like?” then he added, “And I’m not talking about objectives like point capture. I mean the REAL on field targets that protect you and your teammates from getting fuckin’ killed.”  
  
“Priority targets?” Lee sounded dumbfounded.   
  
“Yeah, like what’s the biggest threat to your teams side, and who on your own side needs to be protected?” the sniper gave Lee an unsure glare. The kid had to know something, they couldn’t just send out someone so raw to a base… infact they do it all too often… but surely the kid has some brains. “Take a bit of a gander, and tell me what you think they are.”  
  
Lee looked out over the edge and scanned the fight below.  
  
“The heavy bot and that demo bot look dangerous to our charge.” She ventured. “Kingston is our priority target as they are all attacking him instead of the others more.”  
  
Damien relaxed. “Not half bad Skippy. But not completely right either. Yeah, the enemy heavy is a problem, but if you went for him now, that medic bot behind him will pop an uber, and you’d get bloody mowed over.”  
  
“So I should go for the Medic then?”  
  
“that’s the bunny.”  
  
“But how do I get around the heavy? He’d get me long before I reach the other guy.”  
  
“That’s something you should ask Bazza, but essentially you take him out from behind.” The sniper smiled slightly. He was right; the kid did have some sort of functioning brain. That’s why Baz had warmed up to him so fast. “Now, in the case of our side, I’d say both Kingston and Moriz are priority targets. They are both slow, but shit they deal heaps of damage and if say Von where to be tailing either one of them, he’d fuckin’ trump them in the priority stakes as the whole team relies on him staying alive to keep us all alive, got that Skippy?”  
  
Lee nodded.  
  
“So, in order to protect our main targets, who’d you need to fuckn’ watch for?” Damien smirked. This was a harder question, and he knew the scout wouldn’t be able to answer it just yet.  
  
“umm…” Lee thought rather hard, while scanning the field again. She saw Baz appear form the other side of the field, bat a ball across the main fight and stun the medic bot trailing behind Moriz, which got it pelted with paint from the Red heavy bot and making it fall over due to its programing for its default knock out time for 3 minutes. In that time frame it took for the ball to collide, Baz was already bearing down behind the teams demo man (who Lee had forgotten his name, as the man was quite lividly drunk he wouldn’t be able to remember it anyway) tripping him over and knocking him flat and out of the battle all together before darting off again for another target.  
  
“Other enemy scouts.” Lee finally answered.  
  
“Hey, not bad… not bad at all Skippy. That’s quite right, as they’d be looking for the same targets as you will be. Also, you’d have to be aware of snipers, engineers and spies who’ll also have those things in mind too.” He added the last part in case Lee had forgotten there were other classes who are mostly specialist for picking off other teammates. “But you get the general idea. It changes constantly too, as depending on where you are and who’s on your side the threat can change in seconds.” He was genuinely impressed. “Right now, if you were still down there, you’d be trying to attack the medic bot but at the same time, keep others like Baz, myself and Xeromus away from ours. You get my drift?” He watched the scout nod. Satisfied, he relaxed completely and leaned on the platform’s railing, pulling his hat down over his eyes.   
  
Down below, Baz was just getting started.  
  
Yunai was waiting to leap out at the next bot passing the pyro’s path, only to get tapped on the shoulder. The pyro looked around, saw no one and was patted on the other shoulder. Yunai looked up and sprayed a trail of paint rapidly, thinking that if it was a spy, some of the paint would get on the cloak and show them up. Instead, it just covered the dirt and made the brown dust come up bright purple.  
  
“Mumph muh?” Yunai muffled, slightly confused.  
  
The pyro managed to turn just as a bat swung at head height, missing by inches. The red scout bot ducked and swung again, clipping the pyro on the shoulder, causing Yunai to stumble forward, but not enough to loose balance, and the pyro spun around and fired a jet of paint where the bot would have been. Frantically, Yunai looked around and was taken by surprise by the scout bot, tripping the pyromaniac up and over face first into the dirt. Yunai growled and grabbed out the unused secondary shotgun and fired, at the same time, the scout bot vanished.   
  
“MUMPH MAH MUMK?” The Pyro exclaimed, firing randomly and fast into thin air, hoping to hit the now invisible enemy.   
  
KERSPLAT!  
  
The bot became visible and slumped down on the ground. Yunai had managed to hit the invisible hunk of junk and knock it out in one hit. Yunai lifted the degreaser and started to celebrate, only to have the bot uncloak and lay the Pyro out cold from behind.  
  
Chatter, Lee and Damien had all been watching. There was a stunned silence only followed by the engineer’s searing rage. Chatter jumped immediately onto the com link and shouted angrily, “ JES’T WHAT ARE YER’ PLAYN’ AT BAZ? I SAID MELEE ONLY YER’ LITTL’ SHIT!”  
  
This got a burst of laughter from Damien and a look of shock and horror from Lee who had never seen the engineer so mad since she has arrived.  
  
“You know I was bloody wondering when the little bastard would pull a stunt out there!” the sniper was chuckling so hard his chest hurt. “I mean it’s all well and good to see you have some fuckin’ control over the kid, but shit, it’s nice to know you can’t control everything he gets up to!” To Damien; this was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Never once that he’d known the pair had Baz ever disobeyed the engineer, and had never seen Chatter express any form of rage. Occasionally the scout would get into mischief, but not something that bad to make the other almost explode.  
  
“But it is Melee!” Baz’s voice came over, amongst feted laughing snorting fits as he was trying to get air back into his lungs after his last bout of heckling.   
  
“YER’ USIN’ A DAMN DEAD RINGER!” The engineer snapped. “THEM THER’S CHEATING!”  
  
“I bet Xeromus would beg to differ with you on that, it’s a defensive weapon not an attack so it’s still within you’re little rules!” Baz’s voice chirped merrily.  
  
Damien coughed and was still smiling. “ He’s got a bloody good point there, Flat-Chat.”  
  
Chatter mumbled. “Ok yer’ made yer’ point, now DON’T DO IT AGAIN!” he growled louder so Baz heard him, “Or I’ll sick them ther’ bots all on yer’!”  
  
“Alright, alright I’ll cut it out. SHEESH.” Baz chuckled back. He started moving again, this time targeting Moriz who was taking the time to munch on a steak sandvich he had kept left over from lunch. He got in behind the heavy, poked him hard in the ribs, ducked around and began his usual dodge and strafe routine as the big Russian lunge for him.  
  
“You know, it kinda reminds me of all those times when you two were at our base on call outs and Baz and Macca had all those rather fuckin’ silly bets.” The sniper grinned. “Macca spent all his time after you guys left wondering how come all his bloody pranks on Baz kept back-firing. I’ve never seen anyone out-wit that little shithead before. The last time it was to see who could out run a bunch of hungry Coyotes, Macca spent all night setting up traps to catch Baz in them, only to spend a week trapped in his own nets high above the Fuckin’ pack smelling of Odour le rotting carcass.” The sniper’s teeth showed as his smile grew wider. “Got to admit, that was Fucking funny.”  
  
This made the engineer sigh and loosen up. “Yerp’, those two were a real problem at ther’ time.” He smiled. “Baz still hates ‘em too. Don’t blame ‘em ‘neither, Macca is a pain in the arse, full of rubbish and some of the stuff e’ came out with… yer’ know I even had a mind ter’ give em’ a black eye mer’self.”  
  
The sniper waltzed over to the engineer, glanced at the little screens on the control set up for the bots, looked over to see Lee was still watching the fighting with interest and then turned to Chatter, “ Been prayin’ on my mind mate, how you two are such a great team and all. Was wondering how you had found the kid and managed to get so much respect out of someone from a class that’s famous for bloody not having any what-so-ever.” He scratched his chin. He had never asked either one of them this before, but generally it was because the time they had been on the same side normally was very short, or was normally spent trying to fish Macca out of whatever stupid prank he tried to pull when it back-fired.  
  
“Werl’, I guess yer’ could say if I didn’ do what I did, I wouldn’ be ‘ere ‘neither.” The Engineer spoke solemnly. “’An that’s a fact. Long and short of ther’ matter.” Chatter sniffed and pulled another leaver on the console. “That ther’ boy has saved my behind mor’ times that I can count since, I’d might not ‘ave lasted till now.” A few buttons where pressed here and there. “Ye’r see, he was about Lee’s age when we met and wher’ stationed at Cold Front. ‘nether of us had any sort o’ trainin’ so wer’ learn from the resident scout there. Them ther’ others in the base didn’t bother with us much – ‘cept of course ther’ sniper, whom I am proud to say, I’m hitched to – and werlp’ we had months of nothin’ much happenin’ on the field, yer’ know what it’s like at that base yer’self, all very exclusive mob ther’ don’t take kindly to fresh meat out there and then all of a sudden wer’ thrown inter the thick of it, Baz with the scout and me with Irene at the other end of ther’ field and werlp’ things just went bad. The scout got taken down, and Baz went fer’ his assailant.”   
  
Chatter went sort of quite for a minute before speaking again, fiddling with a few more of the knobs on the console. “He’d been calln’ fer’ help, an’ if he hadn’t werl’ we’d have never found them.  The other sniper was carvin’ his name an’ address inter Baz an’ before he hit the snow I managed to kill ther’ man from behind. We did them ther’ best we could, but Baz was too jumpy about the other scout so we’r being taken to him, but we were too late.”   
  
Damien noted the sadness in the engineer’s tone of voice. It was clear the other scout in question who was killed, meant a lot to the man too.  
  
“Werl’ we didn’t know it then, But that scout and Baz ‘ere were related. I guess them ther’ turnin’ point for knowin’ that was when the boy went awol in our own base. Thems ther’ where desperate to be rid of ‘em after that, and the kid was so mixed up yer couldn’t let him on his own so me an’ Irene transferred with him. Since then, werl’ I’ve never regretted it.” Chatter smiled a little after that last sentence as he meant every word of it too. “Ok on ther’ odd occasion I have, but I’d never take it back.” The engineer looked rather thoughtful, mostly as he was remembering the day when the quite little scout turned feral in a spilt second, killing the squad leader and shouting in a rage, “HE WAS MY FUCKING BROTHER YOU SON OF A BITCH AND YOU LET HIM DIE!” and he had to disarm him before the kid killed himself in the process. The kid needed guidance, and chatter was willing to offer it and to some degree over the years it had worked to his advantage, the younger man managing to save him numerous amounts of times when trouble started heading the engineer’s way.  
  
His thoughts where interrupted by Lee shouting at both him and Damien. “BAZ IS IN TROUBLE DOWN THERE GUYS!” Damien ran over the platform edge and looked in the direction the scout was pointing, and Chatter hunted his monitors till he had Baz full on one of the screens. He better send in a distraction, which was what he promised he’d do if things got a bit out of hand.  
  
Kingston had been making a meal out of the bots so far, and was wondering why they hadn’t designed the program for his skill level, that was until the scout bot came out from behind him and knocked him right over. Before it could dart off, Kingston had grabbed the bot by the ankle and tripped it up and over into the dust. The bot managed to defend itself when the soldier swung his shovel down with a rather badly damaged but battle hardened bat, Kick him hard in the guts and scramble upright before Kingston was able to attack again. The bot weaved and dodged every one of Kingston’s lunges, and parred a few strikes back at him. Kingston pulled back, and the bot seemed to reset itself in what it might do next. The soldier smiled; finally he had a worthy opponent! He’d have to thank the engineer for saving the best one till last. The bot scuffed the dirt, swung a practice swing of the bat and leaped. Kingston went to counter, and missed the bot strafing to the left in a sudden unpredicted jink of movement, then it ducked and weaved, aiming the bat at the soldier’s legs, trying to trip him over again.  
  
KRUNCH!  
  
The wooden bat connected with Kingston’s knee, making his leg give way under him and land heavily on the rock hard ground. The bot wobbled on its feet, brushing itself with its arm as if it was wiping blood from the face and came back around for the solider again. Kingston had rolled out of the way and back upright as the bat thudded into the dirt where he had been with extreme speed, himself bringing the shovel round and…  
  
KONK!  
  
The bot dropped the bat and stumbled into the closest rock sticking out of the ground. The shovel to the side of the head really disorientated it, as now it was stunned. Kingston didn’t notice the bot was actually bleeding as he grabbed it into a headlock and tried to snap its neck. If he had he might not have been so rough with it, putting all his force and weight into the attempt at breakage.  
  
Baz choked, blood dripped from his lips as the soldier’s grip tightened in his strangle hold. He hadn’t expected Kingston to be actually good at close combat and now his little game of silly buggers was plummeting downhill extremely fast. He had to get out of there and fast before the soldier accidently killed him. He pinched one of the soldier’s calves hard and bit into his arm, causing a yelp from Kingston and a weight shift onto one leg, giving Baz the perfect opportunity to flip the man over onto his back and free himself from the hold. He managed to get a bit of distance between him and the soldier, allowing the other man to get up and glare at him. Baz held up one hand to holt the soldier before he charged him, thumped his free hand against his chest and pointed at the man, grinned and spat blood onto the ground in front of the younger man’s feet. Now, it was personal and was more interesting for both fighters, mostly due to Kingston’s hunger to fight a real battle and Baz’s eagerness to show what 7 years of experience in real life or death combat was all about.  
  
The solider screamed, slammed his shovel against his helm a few times then charged right for he scout. Baz was ready for him though,  he dodged then swung his bat hitting the man three times in succession before Kingston managed to wave around his shovel at the scout, missing Baz’s shoulder and was blocked before it hit the scout square in the chest. That could have been pretty nasty, or above all else, pretty fatal.  It did get frustrating that Baz couldn’t do too much to injure the man, he was supposed to be one of the bots but like all hell was he going to be killed for it. If he had to leave the soldier covered in so many bruises his skin was black and blue he was going to do it, just to save his own.  
  
Kingston heaved the shovel around again at leg height, Baz jumped over the swing, spun and hit the soldier across the arms making the man let go of his melee weapon, but was caught by a wildly thrown punch to the chest and another to the already injured side of the head, this time clipping the jaw with a sickening CRACK. There was no time to recover as Kingston kept throwing punches, some barely missing the scout by inches. In all honesty, Baz really hated getting this close to anyone in combat, chances are if they were alert you’d be dead in a flash and being similar to a glass cannon meant you’d get mangled pretty fast before you got any remote damage in on the target. He had not expected Kingston to be this good at it either, but then the guy did have two years of combat training under his belt so the scout was beginning to regret his decision to challenge him. Too late to be thinking that now.  
  
Kingston went to strike again, missed, Baz grabbed the stray punching arm and lifted the soldier up and over and flat on his back in the dust again. Kingston scrambled upright and lunged for the scout, who had already darted off, leapt against the nearest tall rock face, bounced himself off and leapt over the soldier’s head to land on the ground behind him and bring his bat across and into Kingston’s head from behind knocking off the man’s helm, but not hard enough to hurt anything underneath it. The soldier blocked the second swing attempt, gripped the bat and tore it from the scouts possession, swinging it back around and hitting Baz hard on the other side of the head, causing him to stumble and slip over slightly stunned. Baz’s brain was now rattling with pain; he gripped his head trying to get the pounding to stop. The bat was slammed into the dirt beside him, the scout rolling out of the way just in time before impact, scrabbling onto his feet, failing to keep balance and shouldering himself into a rock face. Not a good sign, his head injuries where effecting his equilibrium and his clarity to think in straight lines.  
  
Kingston grinned evilly, the bot must have been badly damaged after the last hit he had made and one more good wack should have it down and out, the soldier could be proud to have beaten the best the engineer had to offer for practicing, meaning the older man would have to make his programs ten times harder for the next bout. Kingston was going to savour it. He picked up his shovel and now had both weapons, swinging them around clearly taunting the bot before going into finishing it off.  
  
Oh shit. That’s the only thought forcing its way into Baz’s brain. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…..  
  
The soldier slowly advanced, there was little to no escape route for someone who couldn’t move around without walking into things. Oh for the love of - Chatter, if you’re fucking watching do something! The scout prayed; I’ve learn my figgin’ lesson for the dead ringer prank, so come on man! Kingston slammed both weapons down, only to find the shovel embedding deep into the rock and snapping the wooden bat in two.  
  
“OI! CHATTER GAVE ME THAT BAT YOU BLOCK-HEAD!” Baz growled; his fist struck out punching Kingston in the face, another landing in the guts and a kick right into the man’s privates, making the soldier keel over in pain. Baz coughed up a bit more blood, he hadn’t intended to get so violent, but that was his favourite bat and had so much sentimental value to it, it was heartbreaking seeing it snapped like a twig. He wasn’t fully paying attention anymore, his brain was just complaining as if it was on fire – which left him wide open to Kingston grabbing him by the legs and pulling them out from under him. He scrabbled at the dirt as the soldier picked himself up and sunlight glinted off the edge of his shovel like an avenging angel his shadow bearing over the scout, ready for the final strike.  
  
KRACK-BOOM!  
  
Kingston’s head pivoted at the sound of close gunfire, and another bullet bounced off the rocks close to both him and Baz. The split second he’s attention was taken off the scout, Baz wrenched the shovel out of Kingston’s grip and drove the weapon with the hardest swing he could do without fully killing the bloke, and watching the soldier land limp into the dust, completely unconscious.  Baz looked up at where the shots came from and saw the medic bot and a rifle wielding pyro bot heading his way. Relief crossed his features as he dropped the shovel, walked over to the medic bot and got a slight heal-recovery, enough to make him think straight at least, but not enough to heal any other sort of damage. The bot was only really designed to uber after all, Chatter only added the small heal feature just to be on the safe side as an afterthought.  
  
“Nice save Flat-Chat.” The sniper whistled, impressed that the engineer had managed to quickly send bots Baz’s way. “Looked like you’re kid there bit off more than he could chew.”  
  
“Welp, melee isn’ he’s strong point, Never ‘as been.” Chatter added. “’Thou’ I didn’t expect our solly down ther’ to be as good as that, and I bet he didn’t ‘neither.” Chatter looked over to Lee, who was looking slightly relived it was all over. The engineer raised an eyebrow at this, but didn’t question it. He heard what Baz had said to the youngster before he went down there and was probably not going to want to show his face around the mess hall later in case of embarrassing reprimand, and a massive blow to his pride. He’d probably want a new bat too.  
  
  
“OW, that stuff really stings Von!” Baz hissed as the medic dabbed the wounds to the head he had received with cotton swabs with antiseptic.  
  
“Vell now you shouldn’t be playing zer silly-buggers vith somevun whom is twice you’re zise, Basil Casey.” The medic glared at Baz over the rim of his glasses, his long hair framing a very impassive expression. He smiled as Baz winced at hearing his full name.  
  
“I didn’t expect him to be so good, alright?” Baz looked very uncomfortable. The medic’s sick bay still had the lingering smell of rotting flesh, but less so than the other day. “Doesn’t this stench bother you at all?”  
  
“I have alvedy solved zat problem.” The medic said smoothly. “I dispozed of zem.”  
  
The scout’s eyes widened. “You what?”  
  
“Got rid ov, all gone.” Von dabbed the scout’s injury again. “Quite frankly zey dizgust me. Ze smell vas awful.”  
  
The scout went quite for a while. He had been thinking about Ivan and how Von might have felt about it. He didn’t know how to breech the subject. “Hey dude, It’s my fault he died ya know?” didn’t really seem to cut it and he was not going to make an idiot out of himself and insult the medic either. He was lucky Von was taking time out of his little experiment testing just to patch him up.  
  
“You zeem to have somzink on your mind, hmm?” Von asked. He had been reading Baz’s expressions and was after a few months of being around the man able to read him similar to Chatter, although it was more or less Von’s job to be able to read the mental state of his patients, you never knew when one might turn on you when treating them without morphine or knockout gas.  
  
“Umm, kinda, maybe.. I think so.”  
  
“Zen spit it out Basil.”  
Baz rubbed the back of his neck and looked downward unable to look Von in the face. “Ivan was killed because I missed that scout the other day. I didn’t know about that last one, and it’s my fault he’s dead.” Baz sighed. “I’m really sorry, Von.”  
  
“Vot are you talking about Basil?” Von gave the scout an odd look. “Zat was not your fault. It vasn’t anyvnes. You cannot be everyvere at vunce. Ve vere zeveral down, if anyzink, Ivan should have been more avare of his surroundings.” Von patted the scout on the back. “I have known vat man for many ov years, not ze brightest brains in ze box, very solid and reliable but very careless at ze best ov times. Just zo happens zis time he vas not zo smart.” He sighed. “Sure, I vill miss him dearly, he vas a very good fighter but zometimes you must pick yourself up and realize zat you cannot control everyzink zat happens to ozher people.”  
  
The scout still looked miserable. “But if I could have warned him, it would have been different. He’d still be here and we’d be all taking him to his retirement party. It’s still my fault Von… it really is.” Baz’s voice trailed off as he slid his hands over his face, trying to disguise his own anguish.  
  
Von sat down next to the scout and pulled away his arms, looking him directly in the face. “Basil, Ve need you to pull youzelf together. Zes things happen, and zis vas not your fault. You need to understand zat.”  
  
“I guess so.” The scout mumbled reluctantly.   
  
The medic bay door swung open and Xermous stalked in. In truth, the spy wasn’t really French, he just acted it as every other spy on the red team was, so being able to blend in amongst the enemy meant he had to be really good at faking it. It was proof that the English always produced the best actors.   
  
“Basil, we need to check this mystery over there out right now.” The man spoke quite abruptly getting right down to the point. “There has been some, developments, and we need to investigate.”  
  
Von glared over his glasses. He knew his patient shouldn’t be wandering around the enemy base, not after being beaten around the head and was not pleased with the spy’s request. Unfortunately, he also knew the scout was the only other person capable of sneaking around with the spy on matters of importance for the blu squads own survival, but it wasn’t to say he fully agreed with it. Von may not like dealing with patients to start with, but he was not really in the mood to deal with the spy right about now either.  
  
Baz groaned. Why did they both HAVE to refer to him by his correct name? He hated it so much; it was to him, so damn girly. It’s not like it made him like either of them anymore than necessary.  He stood up, brushed himself off and straightened up. “I’m right behind you. But we’re to make this quick, I don’t think Von wants me wandering around too much.” He winked at the medic, who just gave the scout a cold glare. Baz could see exactly what the man was thinking, it was written all over the Germans face. He wasn’t impressed that his patient was not going to get any rest and it was clearly showing on his features.  
  
“Do not worry. I will not let any more harm come to your patient, I know how much you dislike treating anyone when you’re on the verge of a medical breakthrough.” The spy assured the medic, although just the thought of having another life in the hands of an untrustworthy spy made Von even more annoyed. “Alright, Basil, let’s go.”  
  
The scout reluctantly followed the spy out of the medical bay, leaving Von to stew in his own pent up anger. Von had known the spy for some time too, and for some reason, after his little chat with Basil just now felt rather untrusting towards the man. Maybe he was just making things up. Von took a deep breath and went back over to his work bench and chloroformed some more frogs.


	6. Fustrated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz parts some class knowledge onto Lee.

  
Lee tossed and turned. Sleeping in the muggy heat was really uncomfortable, these poor excuses the base called ‘beds’ where the worst things she’d ever lay on. Another violent tussle and she had tossed herself onto the hard concrete floor.  
  
Groaning, she picked herself up and trundled out of her quarters. Anything was better than being in that stuffy little room, she had decided. She proceeded to walk down towards the mess hall and paused, noticing a light coming from the base’s smaller recreation room – which consisted of a dilapidated couch, a small black and white television and little much else in the way of real recreation - and headed for that instead.   
  
Chatter was sitting on the couch, reading what looked to be a new engineering manual and Damien was pre-occupied carefully cleaning out his rifle. Either they both had first base watch; of they really couldn’t sleep in the utter fug of a night.  
  
Chatter looked up and said, “Werlp’, how come yer’ still awake son?”   
  
“Too hot.” Lee flopped down beside him on the couch. “What about you guys?”  
  
“Standard upkeep skippy.” Damien replied, not taking his eyes off what he was doing. “Can’t afford to have one of the little buggers get stuck when I need to hit a fucking good target.”  
  
“Baz isn’ back yet.” Chatter frowned. “Kinda worried, havn’ seen ‘em since practice.”  
  
“I bet the little mongrel is fine, Flat-Chat.” Damien looked down the barrel and poked a long sick with a swab on it down the tube. “Stress-less mate.”  
  
Lee spotted some magazines on the floor; they were old and tattered, and covered in baseball images and memorabilia. She picked one up, flicked through some of the pages until she came across some of the adverts. She tried to hide her surprise, closed the magazine and stuffed it under the couch. Some of those ladies where wearing some rather ‘interesting’ garments while holding all those baseball bats. She wondered how companies sold their products when they had so many distractions in their advertisements.  
  
There was a light chuckle beside her. She tried not to blush.  
  
“Found one of Baz’s magazin’ ‘eh boy?” Chatter nudged Lee in the arm. “Didn’ think yer’ were already desperate for that sort of thing.” He winked. Lee couldn’t stop blushing this time, causing the engineer to laugh even harder. Even Damien was grinning, shaking his head.   
  
There were footsteps down the corridor coming towards the rec-room.  All three lifted their heads to see Xeromus, and Chatter and Damien gave him both a little nod as a greeting. He returned it, taking off his mask as well and lighting a smoke.  Without his cover, He reminded you a little of an old fashioned James Bond styled hero, but with better hair and a permanent 12 o’clock shadow.   
  
“Well its official, the enemy has vanished.” The spy muttered. “We believe something must have spooked them really good for them to have dropped everything and made a run for it. I’m also afraid I have to agree with Basil on this one, that something doesn’t feel right over there. We rummaged through some of their files and few other things, but everything important seems to have been taken with them.” He realised his audience also contained a newbie, so he glared at Lee as sweet as pie and raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Haven’t you got some sleep to catch up on Lee? Or better yet, if you need to waste some energy I’m sure Baz could find something for you to do in the shooting range.”  
  
Lee realised she was being shooed off by the man. She groaned, got up and shuffled out. Before she made it out the door way, Xermous remarked, “By the way, Baz isn’t in the greatest of moods, I’d watch my step down there.” She caught the last part of the conversation the spy had restarted as she stormed out. “ So Jethro, Damien we have a situation….”  
  
Lee stood outside her quarters for a few minutes, contemplated another attempt at a non-existent sleep, then turned around and headed for the shooting range in the base’s basement.  
  
Baz dumped a pile of old records down on the table and flipped on the record player that he dragged down to the range as well. Digging through the pile of vinyl, he let out a satisfied sound when he finally found what he was looking for. Placing the needle into the track with care, the player picked it up and started up with some jiving jazz. Clicking his fingers to the beat, he kicked his gun into his hands playfully, fiddled with the console for the ranges targets setting some programming up to take his frustration out on and hopped right into the middle of the range.  
Lee walked into the Range and wondered about the music. The spy had said his mood was pretty foul, so why the upbeat tempo? She came around so that the other scout was in view and stopped in her tracks. She was quite awestruck with what was happening. The fight earlier on during the bot training must have really been half hearted on the scout’s part, as now he was really tearing into the targets. They were springing up with all over, left, right, behind with amazing speed and he…  
  
Lee’s jaw dropped as she watched the other scout move as a blur, taking out multiple targets with a pistol, swapping it from hand to hand, tossing it between them, dodging around them as they sprang out and blasting them to bits. Nimble, precise and efficient, like watching a rat evading a horde of terriers, attacking them before they could (in this case metaphorically) strike.  
  
Baz brushed his face with his arm and wiped the sweat off his brow. He was frustrated he had been thrown off by Kingston earlier that day, and even more annoyed at having all his concerns brushed off and ignored by the teams spy after the last check around of the outskirts of the enemy base. He had all this new responsibility on his shoulders and he couldn’t stand the thought that things that were potentially going to be a problem sooner or later were not being dealt with right now. Last thing he wanted was any of the new squad members to be killed due to whatever it was that might have happened to the red side due to a lack of information and preparation and being shipped off to Cold Front for the rest of his life because of some other idiot. Anger and pent up rage was pulsing through his body, and he wasn’t getting it out fast enough on the targets. The more he attacked them, the madder he got at everything else around him. He grabbed his shirt and yanked it off, knocking off his hat and head set in the process, all landing on the floor, him kicking them aside as an afterthought.  
  
Lee stepped a bit closer, wondering what he was planning to do next. He must have heard her advance, as his head moved up, and without looking he grumbled, “Grab a gun, Jump in here.”  
  
The younger scout froze. “Do I have to repeat myself? Grab a gun and get your arse here or you can forget about me teaching you anything I know about combat.” It was rather harsh and cruel his tone, but it was like an order was delivered that couldn’t be disobeyed. Lee already assumed he was used to giving directions and having them obeyed after the way he instructed them on what they were all supposed to be doing during the last two training sessions. People like that were not to be messed around with, especially when they could move as artful as she had seen. Lee grabbed a scatter gun off the table with the weapons and joined the young man in the middle of the range, cocked the gun and glanced at the other scout nervously. She knew right now she was going to be given a very strict and maybe important lesson and needed to watch where she put her feet.  
  
“Shoot as many as you can.” Baz’s gaze fixed on the younger scout. They were tired, dark rimmed and full of deep dark thoughts. Lee could see things going on in his mind that seemed to be causing his mood to slightly tick over on the out-of-wack scale. “Keep count and keep up. Move those feet and beat my score.” He looked back at the range again when he said the last part. “That’s all you have to do.” The harshness in tone had dropped a little. He knew he shouldn’t get upset with the scout, but among other things, if Lee didn’t learn how to remain alive fast, if it all went pear shaped this thing that’s happening with the red team’s disappearance and they were suddenly base raided the shit would really be hitting the fan.  
  
Targets shot up from the floor super-fast, catching Lee by surprise and Baz took it in his stride and fired, taking two down at once.  
  
“Two.” He murmured.  
  
Another target flung up, and lee shot at it but Baz go to it first, blasting the head clean off it.  
  
“Three.”  
  
Lee was now close enough to stare at the other scout in the eyes. There was a playful gleam to them, begging her to challenge him. She frowned and turned away, hunting for the next target. Two slid out from behind some crates, she made a dash and fire for them.  
  
“Five.” Baz murmured again, this time inches from her ear. He had darted so close to her and taken out both targets with her in the line of fire without even hitting her in the process. There was a hint of cheek in his voice this time, as if he found this all an amusing game. The duel was on. Lee was now so desperate to prove she could match the other scout shot for shot she cleaned up some targets and shouted, “FOUR!”  
  
“Heh,” a smirk crossed his face.  
  
Bang! KACKBANG!   
  
“Ten.” Baz reloaded his pistol in an expert flash and Lee seethed. He glanced at her and a devious smile as now prime in his features. “What’s a matter Slick? Piss in your own bowl of cheerios?” there was a slight chuckle at her expense.   
  
Lee gritted her teeth and snapped, “I’LL SHOW YOU! STOP STEALING MY TARGETS!”  
  
The other scout raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. “Your targets? Since WHEN?” he stood straight and cocky, flicked his head back a bit and wiped the pistol upward , fired, missing Lee by inches and blasting the head clean off the target that leaped up behind her. “If that was a real enemy you’d be thanking me for saving you. Watch your back in future.” Another target sprang up behind him, he dived, pivoted and strifed around it till he was behind and blasted it a hole where its heart would have been. He blew the smoke of the end of the barrel. “What good is speed and a deadly shot when you are not agile enough to dodge an oncoming attack?” An idea formed in his head and he aimed the pistol at Lee. “I suggest you D-O-D-G-E.”  
  
Lee’s eyes widened. Was he fucking serious?  
  
A bullet whizzed past her ear, clipping it on the corner. He wasn’t joking; he really was going to shoot her! He fired again and Lee ducked, weaved and leaped over the bullets pathways. Baz didn’t move as he fired, allowing Lee freedom to avoid being hit. When he ran out of ammo, Baz took his time reloading and spoke. “Nice moves you have there, Slick, now how come I didn’t see you move like that yesterday?” He looked up at the other scout, who was now panting and trying to stop her heart leaping from her chest. “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR? YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME?!” She shouted.  
  
Baz raised a hand in defence. “COULD have, but didn’t. I wanted to see you dodge, since you didn’t against paintballs, I figured maybe you would against live ammunition as your life was now on the line.” He slotted the last bullet into place and clicked the barrel in and re-aimed. “I won’t move, just to make this simple. But sooner or later you’ll have to be able to dodge them from a moving enemy.”  
  
“You’re fucking nuts.” Lee went to storm away when two bullets whizzed past her nose.  
  
“I think you need to ask yourself why you’re here fighting a battle in the first place if that’s the case.” Baz looked smug. “If you can’t handle the heat then get out of the kitchen. We’ll send you home again and you’ll never be able to be recruited at all since you’ll be blacklisted.”  He twirled the pistol, “And here I was thinking you were actually serious about learning to FIGHT.”  
  
Lee growled dropped the gun and reached for a plank of wood with a huge nail sticking out of it and lunged for the scout. She was beyond mad now and a little bit emotionally out of control. Baz stepped aside, grabbed Lee’s arm and pulled her forward, grabbing a failing leg, flipping her over onto the floor.  
  
“See, here’s the thing,” Baz folded his arms. “You don’t seem to realise that attacking enemies from the front isn’t a good idea.”  
  
Lee glared and lunged again, swinging the plank, only to have it wrenched from her grasp and be tripped head-first onto the floor again. “You know if you can’t remotely lay a finger on me, I’d hate to see you take on someone as experienced as Kingston – although I’d pay to see the outcome of that brief encounter.” He now looked deadly serious. “I’m not kidding about this shit you know, you can’t come back from the dead and if you could, it would not be in one complete piece.”  
  
Lee looked sour in expression, but was still not about to give up. She wanted to shut that smart mouth up once and for all. Her final lunge was blocked, Baz grabbed her oncoming fist, ducked the second attempt grabbed her around the waist and flipped her upside down, and held her head inches above the floor.  
“Now you listen to me Slick, and listen to me good right now,” Baz’s voice was now a very low and nasty growl. “And stop failing about or I WILL drop you on your head.” Lee stopped struggling, grumped and looked sulkily; realising there was no attempt of escape. The guy was a lot stronger than she had thought he would be to be able to lift her up and hold her where she was, his tone of voice meaning that if she didn’t pay any attention there was going to be hell later on. “You are going to get yourself and your team mates killed by your rash actions you and your out of control emotions. I HAVE BEEN THERE, I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN EITHER.” The last part was snarled out, sending shivers down Lee’s spine. “My job is to make sure none of you get killed, if I have to beat it into you I will do it and make sure you feel it, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?”  
  
It was rather difficult to nod from this position, but she managed to burble out a “Yes sir.” From being this close to the other scout, looking upwards she could see all the scars in his flesh from bullets, knife attacks and third degree burns that where not noticeable unless you were extremely up close. A person who wore scars like those like badges of honour was someone who shouldn’t be taken lightly and Lee was just learning this the hard way right about now.  
  
“Good.” Baz slowly let Lee go onto the floor, making sure he didn’t hurt the scout. “You’re a ‘Glass Cannon’ Slick and you should start acting like it. That means leaning to become artful and smarter in your assaults on your enemy. Otherwise, like I said before; we can’t bring you back once you’re lacking a pulse.” He pinched the bridge of his nose; lack of sleep was catching him up rather fast now and was giving him a headache. “It’s not like I’m asking you to heckle a pyro with a gun or anything. Heck, I can’t even do that myself and I’ve been fighting this stupid battle for years, there’s some shit that’s just plain suicide no matter which way you look at it – but all I’m asking is for you to try another tactic and use your speed to dodge rather than charging all the time. Two shots at point black are deadly to anyone, but if you can’t get within the weapon range without being blown to pieces there’s really no point having that kind of skill now is there?”  
  
Lee rubbed her arm and looked crestfallen. “I guess not.” She conceded. “I guess I’ve been a bit too rash, but I overheard something from then others about the red side and it well, made me panic that I wasn’t ready for combat yet and then you kinda teased me and well…”  
  
Baz ruffled Lee’s hair and fixed her cap back on her head. “I only do it to make you lose focus.” He admitted. “Taunting is something that throws them off concentrating and makes them take risks, giving you openings. You – on the other hand- need to be able to ignore them. Words can’t hurt, bullets can. Get distracted by words, and you’ll wind up in a hole in the ground. As for the enemy…” his voice trailed. “I don’t even know where to start on that one, but don’t worry too much, I’ll be sure to let you all know what’s going on when I know a bit more. Something is starting to smell, and it’s not Kingston’s limb collection.” He wandered over to his gear and grabbed it, wiping sweat off onto his shirt and tossing it over his shoulder and started heading for the door. “I just wish I knew what it was.” He sighed as he headed out, leaving Lee alone with the targets.


	7. Challange Issued

“Fer’ Cry out loud Baz, get outta bed!” Chatter shook the scout awake.  
  
“Go away got a splitting headache.” Baz mumbled, pulling the lightweight sheet over his head. When he finally went to bed that night Chatter had been working on some new sentry proto-type and the noise from the engineer’s welding equipment meant several false starts before he finally drifted off, to be awoken again by the engineer cluttering around with huge sheets of metal and swearing when he zapped himself on some loose wiring. If the scout was to get any sort of peace, he may as well permanently stick his head in a bucket full of sand. Right now his brain felt sloppier than day old porridge.   
  
“Don’t yer dare make me pull Rank on yer’ boy.” The engineer grumbled in frustration.  
  
“You wouldn’t DARE.” Came a hiss from under the covers.  
  
“GEDDUP AN THAT’S AN ORDER, SERGEANT AT ARMS* BASIL CASEY!” Chatter shouted at the top of his lungs, yanking the cover right off Baz.   
  
“Piss off Captain.” The scout muttered, covering his head with his hands. The light from the tiny little windows was blinding, and made his head pound even harder. “Since when do you need to pull rank and file on me anyway? It’s not like I’m being summoned by the boss of Builders’ United anyway so why bother with it?”  He dragged himself upright and out of bed, yawned, scratched the slight bit of stubble that had starter to grow and looked at the engineer. “I don’t suppose a shower and a shave is out of the question before you march me around the place?” he said sarcastically.  
  
Chatter brushed it off, knowing that the sarcasm was only due to the scout’s lack of sleep and the fact he always looked like warmed over yesterday in the morning. He also knew that Baz hated being spoken to as a rank and file, and would prompt the scout into doing what the engineer wanted as long as he never have to hear it again. Not that being a sergeant at arms was a bad thing, it was giving to the scout as an ‘honouree’ position for living longer than average than the rest in his class, but it also meant responsibilities and Baz had enough of those to fill a stadium.  
  
Baz grabbed up some of his gear and stormed out, walking into the edge of the doorframe on his way out and cursed, causing chatter to smile and shake his head. The recruits where in for it today, Baz’s mood was fouler than Kingston’s box of decapitated legs. He knew there was nothing more dangerous than a scout who wanted to bash the head in of the first person to utter one wrong word.  
  
Baz, bleary eyed and muscles crying uncle - demanding he pay up and cash their pain checks - wandered down the halls towards the communal bathrooms that where essentially buckets over loose pipes that spat out bursts of hot and cold water at random intervals, but anything to take his mind off things was better than nothing at all. He pushed open the door and stepped in, dropping his gear down on a bench and proceeded to shake his can of shaving cream. A quick glance in the mirror made him stop and slowly turn around.  
  
Lee was minding her own business; waiting till she was certain everyone else had taken their showers before ducking in herself, had been quite pleased she’d gotten away with it so far until she stepped out from under the water and walked around the corner to grab her clothes. She froze when she saw Baz standing in front of one of the basins, and he had obviously had the same amount of shock as she did as he was a little slow at turning around. Lee blushed and was beginning to panic, till both of them heard whistling coming towards the door. Baz leaped for the door and Lee grabbed her clothes and dashed back around the corner out of sight. Baz slammed the door behind him just in time, as Von was walking towards the showers. Von was curious now that he’d seen the scout rush out and lean on the door, the young man rubbing his temples like you would if you had just seen something unexpected.  
  
Von knew he could take several guesses, and he’s hit the money on the first one. He decided not to show it. Putting on a poker face of general seriousness, he enquired, “Good Mornink, Bazil, How are you feeling? My vord, you look unvell.” The medic grabbed the scout by the shoulder and studied his features. Baz has never been a morning person anyway so he looked like he’d been run over by field of psychotic bike riders wielding lead pipes. Some bruises form the other day where still showing up and the medic wondered why he was up out of bed at all. He’d have to have some words with the engineer.  
  
“I feel like warmed over yesterday, Doc.” Baz admitted. He had a nasty headache and was aching all over and that little surprise just now had really thrown him out of his depth.  
  
Von tilted the scout’s head this way and that, muttering while doing so. “I can zee zat Bazil. Vhen did you last get a full eight hourz?” The medic held a hand up to prevent Baz from answering immediately, “Not including napping or sleeping on zer couch in ze reck-room, or anywhere elze ozther than your own bed.” The medic knew full well Baz had the worst sleeping habit of anyone he had ever met; if he could live without sleep at all he’d be the first to take the drugs that allowed it.  
  
“Can you give me something for it? I’d rather not feel like someone’s bashing me in the head with my own bat if it’s all the same.” Baz just wanted this to be over and done with. He was still trying to believe what he had just saw back in there was what he had just saw. If it was, it would explain a lot of things, the reason why the kid looked and sounded 16 rather than 18 for a start.  
  
Dressed, Lee stood at the door and leant against it, listening to the conversation on the otherside. PLEASE, OH PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE! She was screaming in her head. I DON’T WANNA BE SENT BACK HOME!  
  
“Vell let me just grab my hand towel and ve can see vhat I can prescribe you for your pain.” Von reached for the door, but Baz was quick to block it and grab the medics hand.  
“I’d rather get it straight away doc,” He said rather quickly getting a suspicious look from the medic, confirming what the medic had already assumed had happened. “I really feel awful and let’s face it I really need to use my brain a lot today if we’re doing all of that again.” He draped himself over the medics shoulder, and steered the man away from the showers, “And quite frankly you’d don’t want to see me back in your office anytime soon form random bouts of stupidity now do you?”  
  
“Vell yes I suppose you are right.” Von agreed. “Let’s go fix you up zhen shall ve?” the medic patted the scout on the back and lead him to the infirmary.  Baz glanced back at the showers and thought, YOU OWE ME SLICK.  
  
Breakfast wasn’t any less awkward. Baz had sat by himself, mostly due to him trying to ease off his own headache, and the rest partly as everyone else thought he was a ticking bomb waiting to explode. Lee avoided looking at him or Von, both men knowing what she was, and none of them had said anything about it. She was sure the medic wouldn’t but the scout… what if he told someone? Could he be trusted? How would she know if he had said anything already?  
  
The demoman was joking around with Moriz until the room went quiet from the demoman’s examination, “That poor excuse for a display yesterday from the scout? HA! I could fight yer’ bloody solly better than that ta boot!”  
  
Kingston, who had been walking over toward Baz to see how he was and show him some of his new ear lapels growled, “What was that you drunkin’ bum?” The soldier looked annoyed. He felt awful after they told him the bot he had been fighting really was the scout. Not because he was fighting one of his own, but mostly because all he was thinking about was killing him the whole confrontation. He had taken quite a liking to Baz after the guy lifted the minigun on his own and took out that target without giving under the weight of such a beast. He had giving the soldier a real run for his money yesterday too, and the soldier was hoping the scout was able to show him a few of those moves he used to disable him.  
  
“Aye said, Yer’ Yankie that I’d be able ta fight ya better than that bloody scoot and win anyday!” The demoman repeated.  
  
“Now hold yer’ horses ther’ a gosh darn minute, Sean.” Chatter tried to interject before a fight broke out. “Baz wasn’ allowed to hurt anyone and Steve ‘ere didn’t know he wasn’ a bot, so jus’ drop it already will yer’?  
  
“Ak, I canna see that fer meself, both of yer’s suck, I could take yer’ both bloody on I can.” Sean rolled his eyes and shot the engineer a look to keep his mouth shut.  
  
“HA HA yes! Skinny man and Rocket boy could easy be steamrolled any day!” Moriz joined in the heckling.  
  
“NOW YOU JUST LOOK HERE YOU SNOW-SNOTTERD - ” Kingston started to yell before a hand rested on his shoulder. He turned his head to see the scout now standing beside him, looking like he was going to bash some heads together, but really fighting the urge to do so.  
  
“So let me get this straight, you think you could do better huh?” Baz spoke quietly and casually, his voice made everyone else go silent and have their ears hang on every word.  
  
“I bloody well think so yer’ wee toothpick!” Sean laughed. The Russian chuckled along with him.  
  
“Alright, I’ll take that bet.” Baz motioned his head a little, a slight cockiness was shining through his action. “What ya reckon Steve-o? you an’ me, against…” Baz leapt onto one of the closet tables and moved his arms wide, “All of you, Two on four. Chatter, Moriz, Sean and Slick, verses Steve-o and me.” Baz leaned on the soldier and looked smug. “I think we can take them, whatta’bout you?” Baz really laid on his accent now, making him sound less intelligent than what he really was. Only Chatter seemed to pick up on what Baz was doing and was going to put a stop to it.  
  
“Now who’s talkn’ crazy Baz,” Chatter began but was interrupted by Sean again.  
  
“Akh! I accept ye challenge ya wee scrawny bag of bones!” The demoman snorted and spat on the floor of the mess hall. Chatter shook his head, knowing full well everyone had just been thrown into the deep end. He looked up and caught Baz’s glare from under his Hermes and really wished he hadn’t. The demons that lurked there where smiling back at him. He knew the scout was really going to try to mess with the Scotsman and the Russian the second they were out there all armed and ready to fire upon each other. One thing Chatter had learned over the years was you never challenge him to a dare… as you always found yourself in a lot more trouble than what you had started with, and right now, Sean and Moriz where going to be prime targets for the worst weapons heckling of their lives and this time Baz has a soldier to help him. The engineer glanced over at the soldier whose ego was inflated; he had been rightfully insulted by the two defenders and was clearly holding back on what he thought of them, now that the challenge had been issued. It was written in his features, the seeking of revenge he was going to hand out later was going to be full blown nasty.    
  
Baz, leapt of the table and swung an arm around the soldier and grinned evilly. “We’re gonna make them wish they never insulted us, and I have an idea of how we can pull it off.”  
  
A huge smile spread across the soldier’s face. “Let’s hear more. I LIKE where this is headed.”  
  
 _*The term Sergeant-at-Arms can be divided into two main definitions; one being a military role and the other governmental. Whereas technically the two roles were not mutually exclusive, they bore very different significance and duties. The sergeant that was a soldier was a man of what would be termed in modern society 'middle class' origins, fulfilling a slightly junior role to the knight in the medieval hierarchy. Sergeants could fight either as heavy to light cavalry, or as well-trained professional infantry, either spearmen or crossbowmen. Most notable medieval mercenaries fell into the 'sergeant' class, such as Flemish crossbowmen and spearmen, who were seen as reliable quality troops. The sergeant class were deemed to be 'worth half of a knight' in military value. The office originated in medieval England to serve the Sovereign in a police role, much like a bailiff in more recent times. Indeed, the Sergeants-at-Arms constitute the oldest royal bodyguard in England, dating from the time of King Richard I (around 1189) as a formed body._


	8. Blast Corps

  
“Alright gentlemen, does everyone know the rules of the skirmish?” Xermous looked from one team to another. He got a round of nods and mutters in response. Soldier and scout against the rest of the team; It couldn’t get any more interesting than that, the spy mused. In his experience the only time a soldier ever worked willingly with a scout in any sort of battle situation was because both classes had no other option for survival than to help each other out. The situation was helped by the fact the scout was a lot older than the soldier, but the Englishmen was a betting man and he went $50 on their teamwork falling apart within the first 20minutes of the round. Von had also sided with him and put on $20 but they were hoping that Damien was wrong in his assumption, as the sniper had seen the two of them go head to head the day before and was betting $600 on the two of them coming out of this without a scratch. Typical Australian, always going for the underdog, but it was the bushman’s way.  
  
Baz and Kingston where given a head start to dig themselves in somewhere with the notion that they were going to be the hunted this round. What little assumed of them was going to become a nasty surprise later on, as Baz had already been thinking about this for the past 3 hours and already had some tricks in his arsenal that was hopefully going to turn the hunted into the hunters. Limited to shotguns with paint and melee weapons, they really needed some strategy and a lot of luck on their side. With minimum amount of communication, the two of them darted off to find somewhere to hide.  
  
Yunai, Chatter, Lee, Sean and Moriz set out after them, the engineer slinging out a teleporter quick smart as he had a sneaky suspicion that they were going to have to be doing some serious retreating after this was over. Watching from the platform above the field, Von, Xermous and Damien could hear the constant stream of radio communications between them, and the arguments that where slowly developing between the Demoman and the others. It wasn’t taking very long for the larger team to have difficulties and this was at least cheering the sniper up as he also bet a lot on the larger side falling apart after the first few shots had been fired.  
  
Chatter was setting up his paintballing sentry gun in a bottleneck, the gun had been converted to fire paint missiles and pellets at a rapid rate, the engineer knowing that the only way he was going to make any hits on his companion was to make them as fast and as unavoidable as possible. Sean was already grumbling about his paint bombs, the demoman not happy that he couldn’t use live ammunition, Moriz wasn’t too troubled been stuck with a shotgun for another round and Lee and Yunai where already scouring the field, sending feed back to the other three about whatever they came across.  
  
“Quit ye’r bellyachein’” Chatter growled at the Scotsman, he was already starting to get fed up with the man’s complaints. “I spend my time with someone half yer’ age and he’d complain ten times less than yer’.”  
  
“Akh canna believe yah ruined me beloved Launcher for this tripe!” Sean grizzled.  
  
“Firstly, That thar’ weapon was built specifically for this sort of thing. I even wrote them ther’ assembly mer’self.” Chatter got right in the face of the demoman, his wrench not far from the man’s face, “An’ Baz build and tested them things just so yer’ can all learn how ter’ work as a team without fillin’ each other full of holes the size of the grand canyon.”  
  
“You need pay attention; they might find skinny man and Carrot man.” Moriz interjected. “They need back up so we need listen for help.” The Russian spoke slowly. His English was slowly on the improvement- having only just picked it up here and there in the past year- but it still took a few minutes for both men to register what he meant.  
  
Baz and Kingston on the other hand, had already started putting their skills into play. They had both spotted the other scout and the pyro heading their direction, and had split up to encircle them. Kingston had his shotgun poised waiting for his chance to fire, and a small shard of reflective glass in his free hand. He had been thinking about what the scout had said he was supposed to do with it, and a smile was brought to his face as it went back to the days when the trained without radio communication. Right now, all he had to do was wait.  
  
Yunai was turning this way and that, letting little puffs of paint out of the end of the flamethrower as the pyro started to practice with spy checking, something that was a necessary chore. Lee was just pushing ahead; a little miffed that she was paired with the one person on the entire base she couldn’t understand a word from and would have so much difficulty trying to communicate with, neither of them where really taking a good observation of the world around them, if they had, they would have seen what was happening.  
  
Xermous spoke like a man with something on his mind. “I hear a lot of backchat, but so far I hear nothing from our two man team. I think this lack of communication is going to be a problem for them in a matter of moments.”  
  
Von stared over the railing of the platform and squinted to get a better view. “Hmm, I Think zey are up to somzthing.” The medic peered through his low sitting glasses. He gave the sniper a nudge, and Damien lowered his rifle scope, as he was trying to get a better view. “Vot do you think?”  
  
The sniper lifted the scope again, and caught a sudden blinding flash which made him pull away and rub his eyes. “Oh I think they’re doing just fine,” he smiled after he regained some of his sight back. “Bloody fucking brains the two of them must have, I’d have never thought about doing that.” The other two men leaned over to try and get a better look. There was a shiny light flickering off in the distance where the older scout’s position was. Another flicker winked back.  
 Damien chuckled when both the spy and the medic reacted to the flashes of light. “How fucking good is your Morse code gents?”  
  
The scout watched the two below them, and flicked the glass to reflect the sun when they were not looking his direction. Through his earpiece he could hear the rest of the team and exactly what they were doing, the downside was that if he and the soldier used the coms they would be just as exposed and would become easy targets. Baz knew that the communication system was designed so that teams could all hear one another and they couldn’t be changed to make it possible for an in-squad skirmish- as friendly fire between members of their own side was highly frowned upon, Baz having learned that after blasting one of his own teammates in the back of the head a few years ago – so they needed another way to communicate without becoming sitting ducks. That was when a brief discussion on Morse code with the soldier that gave the scout the idea of using it to send signals to his teammate. It was quick, silent and if used correctly, able to keep them hidden from the other team.  
  
A few small flashes came back as a response was relayed. The scout pocketed the shard, fumbled for a ball from his pack and slammed it hard with his new bat as it hovered in the split second he threw it up into the air. Distraction delivered.  
  
KABONK!  
  
Lee spun around as Yunai sprayed her in yellow paint from the flame thrower in surprise and copped a face full. The pyro stumbled about and then fell over, leaving the scout totally exposed to two gunfire shots of red paint blasted from behind.  
  
Kingston ducked back into cover of the rockface he was residing by and reloaded. He fumbled to load the first shell in, popping the paint open and spraying himself with red splotches by mistake, but managed to load the other one in without a problem. The paint pellets where not the easiest things to load on the fly, but they were not as bad as struggling to load a rocket launcher when under heavy fire. He ducked back out, checked that the enemy where still confused, and flashed a quick ‘Got ‘em’ signal back to the scout. A few more where relayed back.  
  
“Se..ry..bo..le..eck, dem..man..heav…defe..ce.” he read to himself aloud as the message flashed. He sent another, “Lure..ng..par..y?”  A few minutes past before the replay came. “Yes.” Great, the soldier muttered. They were trying to lure them into a trap to be paint spammed.  
  
Damien looked smug and turned to the other men. “So, what was that you guys owe me again?” he held out his palm and indicated with his gesture that they had better start paying up. Xermous and Von both grumbled as they dug in their pockets for their wallets.  
  
“Wa..t.. th..re” Baz flashed his last message, watched the soldier duck out from view and then climbed down from his spot, careful not to be spotted going around the two startled foes and lowered himself down beside the soldier under the rock face. He gave the younger man thumbs up. “Nice shooting.” He whispered.  
  
Kingston flashed a smile. It was nice to get praised for accurate shooting. He watched the scout for a few minutes, load his scatter gun with the paint pellets, quickly without fuss and noticed the little pip and stripes on the scout’s shirt sleeves. Baz motioned his head that he was ready, and both men darted out from the cover and headed for the bottle neck. They split off to surround the defenders, Kingston finding a small groove to duck into and Baz snuck into a small alcove.   
  
There was still squabbling below them, but after a few minutes, the Russian headed off to find out what became of Yunai and Lee as the communication with them had gone down, and Sean sulkily plonked himself down an a crate and popped another bottle of whiskey. Only Chatter seemed highly alert and on the watch for the other team.  
  
Sean thumped the bottle onto the crate and heard a familiar THUNK sound. Looking around to make sure no one was paying him much attention, he lifted the lid and his remaining eye lit up with what he saw.  
  
Kingston moved so he could get the engineer and his sentry in view.  He waited a few minutes, pulled the glass out of his pocket and signalled the scout. Another message blinked past and Kingston’s brow furrowed.     He looked over to where the demoman was standing but couldn’t see what he was doing. “Up.. to…so..hing?” he relayed. Another winked back, “W.ll..che..k..it..ut.. Sta..pu..t”  he murmured. He watched as the scout slowly crept along the rock edges to get a better view. He couldn’t gage the man’s expression for that distance, but and uneasy feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong, very wrong.  
Baz couldn’t see what was in the create from so high up, so he chanced it and tried to get in closer look, slipping and dislodging a few loose stones as he made his way around. he glanced up, to make sure there was no signals from the soldier about the engineer, then leaned over the edge of his new location, trying not to slip and fall.  
  
OH SHIT.  
  
Baz got up hastily, dislodging more rocks and slipping over and in desperation he lashed out and grabbed some rather pointed rocks for hand hold, missing them the first time and injuring his hand, but succeeding in the second, and pulling himself up to safety.  
  
Kingston saw the engineer spin around in response to the noise, and quickly S.O.S. signalled the scout to get the hell out of there.   
  
Baz didn’t need to be warned; he was already attempting to make a beeline out of there and into a safer area, slipping and sliding on loose gravel underfoot with some real apparent urgency. Kingston moved into view on the other side and fire towards the engineer, missing both shots but buying the scout enough time to escape.  
  
Sean had also seen the scout, and with a wicked grin he took a large swig of whisky and set the loader on his grenade launcher and took aim.  
  
  
KABOOM!   
  
Half the rock face beside the scout crumbled and shattered into shards of pain and oblivion inches from the man’s head. Baz ducked and slid into cover as rocks pelted him all over from the blast.  
  
“WHAT IN TAR’NATION?!” Chatter saw the explosion and then noticed the empty crate. “SWEET MOTHR’ OF ‘ER RATTLE SNAKE!” The engineer swore and was quick to notice the Scotsman in pursuit of someone from the other team. He run back to his sentry and grabbed his com and shouted into it “WER’ GOT AN EMERGENCY SITUTATION DOWN ‘ERE, WER’ GOT LIVE AMMUNITION ON ‘HER TRAININ’ FIELD!”  
  
In response, Moritz, Lee and Yunai all headed back towards the engineer with speed to give him any back up he needed, while Kingston, who was more concerned about his current team mate for this round,  started running in hopes to intercept the demoman or at least get to the scout before the Scotsman did.  
  
Baz had got back up and had started running for it like his whole life depended on it. Exploding grenades inches from his heels were spraying shrapnel all over the place; a few lucky shots hit areas of rock to the side of him or above him, making dodging and weaving very difficult. As long as he led the psychotic bomb-wielding drunk away from everyone else, he didn’t care much what happened to him. He rounded a corner as another one hit the rocks to the left of him, and a hand grabbed him and slammed him against the rock side just as another grenade exploded where he would have been. Rasping for breath and heart leaping out of his cheat he pressed himself against the wall and gave his rescuer a half-hearted smile of gratitude.   
  
Chatter was now running a few meters behind the demoman and was shouting at him. Sean, all power hungry after letting fly with live ammunition on an enemy and also highly intoxicated, sent some grenades back down towards the engineer. Chatter was now stuck between a rock and a hard place as he had nowhere available to dodge. As the grenade exploded, Chatter was violently pushed into the dirt by a sudden heavy weight from behind. Rocks pelted and dinted his hard hat, and he held on to it hoping they wouldn’t bounce it off. The weight lifted, and he was helped up by Lee and Yunai off the ground, and dusted off by Moriz.  
  
“So sorry ‘bout that.”  The large man apologised. “Didn’t want little hard hat to be hurt.”  
  
“Much appreciated.”  Chatter thanked the Russian, pulled his wrench from his overalls and dropped it as a searing pain shot up along his arm. “Blazes!” he hissed, grabbing his arm. Yunai grabbed it gingerly and inspected it.   
  
“My Miff Miffts Mookrn.” The pyro muffled. The pain on Chatter’s face was a definite indicator that the pyromaniac was right.  
  
“We better get you to Von,” Lee started to say when another grenade hit. All four of them hit the deck as rocks shattered and pelted them from above.  
  
“We better do something, otherwise the next ones gonna bring the whole rock side down on top of them!” Baz grabbed Kingston by the collar of his uniform. “Here’s the plan, I’ll cause a distraction and you take him out while he’s not paying attention. That’d hopefully buy those guys enough time to get the hell outta there.” Baz took a deep breath. “I just hope like hell he doesn’t blow me to pieces before they get to safety.”   
  
“But-”  
  
“That’s an ORDER, soldier!” Baz snapped. Upon command, Kingston saluted. He didn’t agree with this decision, but there weren’t many other options that had presented themselves. Baz then ducked out from hiding and shouted, “OI! OVER HERE YOU SKIRT-WEARING CYCLOPS! YOU COULDN’T HIT ME EVEN IF I WAS TIED TO A FENCE, YOUR AIM SUCKS!” He placed his fingers to his lips and whistled in an attempt to grab the man’s attention. A grenade blowing up meters from his feet suggested it had worked and now the scout had turned and ran with the drunken Scotsman following behind.  
  
 Kingston ran out from cover and over to the other team members and shouted, “Get out of here as fast as you can, the whole rock face is going to fall!” He tried pushing them and hustling them as quick as he could to get them to safety just as the rocks began to crumble and fall, blocking the path.  
  
Chatter was getting panicky; the engineer always getting a bit jumpy when he knew his old partner was in a lot of danger. He grabbed the soldier and pulled him down to his height (which wasn’t far, Chatter’s tall for an engineer)   and demanded, “Son you better get back up ther’ and give ma boy a hand or I’ll make sure yer’ life at this base becomes a livin’ hell!” the threat was clear, Chatter never messed about when the lives of those he gave a damn about were concerned, and there was only two people he ever worried about, and one of them was more trouble than the other. He grabbed his wrench in his good arm and started after the demoman again, only this time flanked by the pyro and the scout with the heavy trailing behind, ready to push all of them out of the way should a stray grenade came there way.  
  
Kingston grunted and scratched his head from under his grenadier’s softcap. He didn’t like how this was going to go. He looked up at the trail of explosions that where dancing along the ridge and started heading towards them.  
  
Baz leapt against rocky walls, cartwheeled and bounced himself forward, dodging a lot of near misses and getting sprayed by the constant bombardment of shrapnel from the grenades. Years of avoiding being killed on the battlefield where waking up and forcing his body into jinking this way and that to confuse and throw off the other man’s aim. It wasn’t the most graceful movements around, but highly practical as being harder to hit meant the longer he could keep them man distracted till he got aid. If he could lead the demoman back down towards the sentry gun Chatter had set up, the speed of the paint pellets hitting him should slow him down, or at least incapacitate the man enough the scout could knock him out with a stunball.  
  
He leapt down the rocky mountainside towards the bottle neck, and landed on Kingston who was coming towards them from the other way. There wasn’t any time to argue or engage in any petty fighting, both men rushing to pick themselves up as it rained grenades around them. The soldier tugged the scout by the shirt and they were now both running from the Scotsman.  
  
 “That way!” Baz shouted and pointed towards to sentry guns that where just visible in the ridge, and the soldier ran ahead of the scout, both ducking as more explosions of rocks shattered around them. Baz blinked a second, and realised that they were not being attacked by grenades anymore, but another type of explosive that was being flung ahead of them. Baz sped up and grabbed the soldier and flung him out of the way before it exploded.  
  
The soldier picked himself up as a few more bombs blew, and looked all around for the scout. Kingston knew his life would not be worth living if anything happened to the man due to the engineer’s threat, but also he had so much more to learn from the scout that if anything happened to him right now would leave a huge gap in the soldier’s training. He spotted him, in a heap near a spire where the last sticky bomb was. The soldier ran over, holding his hat down as he moved, as rocks where still flying up around him, striking him in his body and in the face. He reached the other young man and grabbed a hold of him, the scout clearly unconscious from being flung against the rock from the blast. Kingston felt blood at the back of the man’s head and knew instantly that he needed a medic fast. Another sticky bomb landed meters from them and Kingston realised they were in more trouble than they had started with.  
  
KRACKBOOM!  
  
Chatter saw the two young men being thrown by the blast and assaulted by a few more, each getting closer and closer to both young men. The engineer ran up in bloodlust and anger towards the demoman from behind, wrench swinging around ready to clobber the man to death. Before the blow was brought round to strike, Xermous uncloaked in front of the engineer, grabbed the man’s arm to holt it, then aimed a dartgun at the back of the demoman and fired. Still murderous with rage, Chatter spat in the spy’s face, “WHY DID YER’ ‘LL STOP ME?”  
  
“Because,” the spy snapped back at the engineer “If you killed him you would be shipped off this base. I know all about you and the scout and why you have been bounced around from base to base before you winded up here.”  
  
“An would it matter ter’ yer’?” Chatter spat directly into the man’s face. “They’d jus’ ship us elsewhere anyway so why does it matter?”  
  
“It matters a lot.” Xermous glared at the man and stared him down. “There was a reason I requested the two of you one this base. I cannot afford to lose either of you. Did you realise that if I let you kill the blasted drunkard not only would you both be shipped off, you’d both be permanently separated and unable to be stationed with another again?”  
  
The engineer’s expression became puzzled. “What? Yer’ talkin’ crap now yer’ slimy varmit.”  
  
“You mean you’ve forgotten Basil and the administrator’s deal, Jethro? If any of the recruits die before they pass muster he is permanently shipped to the Cold Front and I highly doubt you’d be sent to the same place if it was you who landed the killing blow.” The spy lowered the engineer’s arm and let go. The engineer deflated, but only slightly.  “Yer’ owe me some answers Xero.” Chatter waved the wrench at the spy. Defeated, he turned to the others,  “Wha’ yer’ all jus’ standin’ around ‘ere for? Go help them!”  
  
“Ugh.”  
  
“Do Not move your head, you vill be in a lot of pain.”  
  
Baz struggled to open his eyes. His head was pounding like crazy. Just what he always wanted, another head injury. One day he swore his brains where going to leak out due to all these holes that seem to be attempting to let it free. He was also getting slightly fed up with waking up in Von’s medical bay, the realisation he was waking up there more than his own bed. He glanced around, but could only stare at the ceiling. He could hear other voices though.  
  
“Glad yer’ still with us, son.” Chatter’s voice waffled through the cloud of cotton wool his head felt stuffed with. He sounded relived. The man’s face came into view. “Yer’ jus’ keep managin’ to get a couple of good wacks on the noggin’.” The engineer joked. His arm was bandaged in a sling, but there didn’t appear to be much else damage to the man. Baz was relived. He was afraid the bombs had hit them. Then memory flicked a card.  
  
“Is Steve-o alright?” Baz’s speech was a little slurred, but not much was expected under the heavy influence of pain killers.  
  
“Here.” The soldier groaned. Kingston was being patched up by Von and wincing as the medic pulled the bandages around the man’s chest tight. He had used his own body as a shield after the last blast, and had a few broken ribs and large parts of his flesh all seared and burned across his back and some rather large shrapnel wounds. He smiled wearily. “A life fer’ a life, ‘ey soldier?” he chuckled and then regretted it as the pain shot through his chest.  
  
Baz, despite himself, started to laugh. Chatter started chuckling too. Kingston looked from the engineer to the scout and back and started laughing too. Von smiled and shook his head and left them to it, closing the medic bay doors behind him. What was the old saying? Those who are about to die, will laugh at anything.  
  
He bumped into Lee who was walking towards the bay. She paused. “Why are they laughing? Have they lost their minds?”  
  
Von wrapped an arm around the small scout’s shoulders and grinned. “Ven you come close to zeeing zer otzer side, you vill get ze joke. Just prey you vill never get ze chance. Now if you excuse me, I have zome business to attend to.”  He patted Lee on the back and walked towards the demoman’s room, Stood in front of it and filled a syringe with some mysterious liquid and entered the room.


	9. Messages from home and the Flaming eagles.

Later on that evening, everyone besides Sean was enjoying their dinner in the mess hall. There was more happiness in the air than usual for the longer standing members of turtlefort, as tonight was mail night, the one night of the month that they got letters and packages from home (except Chatter, Irene had channels and was able to send them more regular) to remind them of what they were missing. Moriz was showing photos of his loved ones, Chatter was sharing around more cupcakes made by his wife, Yunai was pulling out some woolly warmers and trying them on over the top of the pyro gear and Damien and Kingston where swapping photos of their cars at home. Baz as usual was getting ready for another night of base patrolling and noticed Lee from the corner of his eyes. She had also received a letter from home, but it didn’t look like it was good news. The scout looked very sad, and could get herself out of the hall fast enough, shouldering past Baz in her haste to get out of the hall. No one else noticed, they were too busy sharing their news from home with one another. The scout walked out of the hall, and headed for the battlement that over looked both bases of 2 fort. Baz saw Lee sitting with her head in her hands, curled up and trying to hide all her tears inside.  Never been one to leave a lady cry all on her own, he slowly wandered over.  
  
“You know, I’m not gonna ask what’s in that letter, but I bet I can guess.” Baz sat down next to Lee, “It’d be along the lines of ‘My Daughter shouldn’t be a soldier and should come home right now and have kids and raise a family…” he looked at her and saw her face. He had hit home, more or less. “Listen,” he said, looking away and out towards the battlement edge, “I know EXACTLY how that is. I don’t ever want to set foot back home because I know what my own mother’s gonna do. It’d be all like, ‘ I met this beautiful girl at the shops the other day, she has her own job, makes wonderful cakes, I want to set you two up on a date and hopefully you’ll hit it off, settle down give me some grandkids, ‘cause lord knows your other dim-witted brothers ain’t gonna give me any.’” He mocked his mother’s voice. Lee sniggered - despite feeling depressed - at the imitation Baz gave of his own mother. He continued, “I’m the youngest of 10 kids, all boys so I KNOW what I’m talking about. What I seriously would have wanted was a sister, but my mother stopped trying after having me, realising that ain’t ever gonna happen.” He dug into a back pocket of his trousers and pulled lout two old photos. He also lent Lee his hat. “Reason why I can’t ever go home Slick. Shame really, but seriously I doubt I could honestly take what could possibly be in store for me back there.”  
  
Lee looked at the hat. Baz sighed. “Under the rim on the inside, love.”  
  
Lee lifted the small rimming, the name ‘Laurance’ was stitched in the material.  
  
“It was my older brothers.” Baz said softly.   
  
Lee took the photos off him and let her eyes scan them. One was a photo of a woman with 10 young boys all standing like they were in a school picture. Most of them where built and heavy-set, but the oldest was tall and thin up one end, and the youngest (who Lee made the assumption that it was Baz) was skinny, small and scrawny. The other photo was of the eldest and the youngest, taken a lot later than the family photo, dressed in baseball kit of the New York Yankees.   
  
“Laurence was the only one I ever got on with. I guess you could say I was he’s favourite to mess around with growing up. He joined the battles here when he turned 20, and that was hell on me, ‘cause it was then my other brothers started hitting puberty and deciding it was fun to torture the little runt in the family, so he knows all of life’s lessons. They did things like nail me to the wall, wash my clothes with dog meat and then dump me in an alley somewhere to run for my life from starving dogs, and my brother Steve had this thing where’d he’d stuff me into a doona case and throw me into the pool in the backyard, just so the others could laugh at me trying to get out. They’d eventually fish me out, but usually it was when they saw that I wasn’t fighting back anymore and they were not going to take me to a hospital otherwise ma would find out and possibly ship either me or them into a boarding school. When Laurence was on leave he’d visit and always question me where I got all the bruises and cuts from, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell him. When I turned 18 he found out what they were up to when he walked in on them using me as a pin cushion for their home made darts, ‘cause my girl at the time had kind ran to get him after they kinda grabbed me and pulled me into their car after a lunch date we had.” Baz shifted in his sitting position to get comfortable, and really tried hard not to look at Lee in case he didn’t like what he might see, telling her all this stuff. He never even told Chatter or Irene any of this -  afraid of how they’d react-  it was some stuff he hoped never to have ever spoken about to anyone, but the fact was, Lee needed to know she wasn’t alone on the whole ‘Family is like a wasp nest on fire’ thing.  
  
“As soon as he could he took me with him and dropped me off at the training facility for this blasted war, and told me that I was always his favourite brother and he wanted to see that I was set on the right path and everything just like he was. I didn’t want to prove to him he was wrong. ‘course, like you, they gave me bugger all training – hell at the time I didn’t even know how to aim a gun let alone shoot the blasted thing- and then shipped me off somewhere to learn the rest from another of my same class. Lucky for me, I was sent to be trained by Laurance. At that same base I met Chatter, who had maybe a years’ worth more experience than me, and then Laurance introduced us both to Irene who was the teams sniper, and funny as it sounds, the only other person in that whole base not to treat us like leapers. Me and Laurance never mentioned the whole brother thing to anyone, I don’t know why he never, maybe as he thought it would make me feel uncomfortable, but I know I didn’t as I didn’t want the rest of the squad to know he was related to some pathetic kid who couldn’t fire a weapon. When we had months of snow ins I spent a lot of time around Chatter and Irene learning things about machines, battle strategies, anything they could think of the keep me distracted and out of Laurance’s way when he was doing important stuff, as I’d sneak off and try to follow him around, and then my brother would take us for shooting practice against some of the local wildlife because he’d never seen us kill anything before.”  
  
Lee watched the other scout’s shoulders slump as he geared himself up to tell her the next part.   
  
“First big battle we were finally engaged in after months of no activity, we’re trudging through the snow, I was tailing Laurance, and Chatter was tied at the other end of the field to Irene just for reasons of safety, they both thought we needed a bit more watching as we were really both green at this combat stuff, My brother’s shouting all sorts of orders, enemy locals-you name it, he could spot it-  then out of nowhere comes several shots from the trees, some of them missing me, but most hit my brother. I called for the medic that we had a man down then the squad’s soldier’s voice came of the intercom and was screaming at me to’ shut the hell up ya wriggling maggot no one wants to hear what you have to say, so get off the fucking radio waves and leave everything to the experts!’ I tried again, and got more abuse. I grabbed Laurance and tried to drag him off to safety, and got a round of bullets in my arm for the trouble. The snow made it impossible for me to move around with him over my shoulder, in the end I just collapsed under his weight and the struggle in the slush. More shots were fired, and this time they all hit my brother again, finishing him. I couldn’t prevent it.” Baz buried his head in his arms for a moment before continuing, “I was so mad, so angry that I couldn’t get any help I dug myself out and charged gun-ho where the shots had come from. There was a sniper camped hidden amongst the trees, and I went for the bastard. I guess Irene and Chatter had both been listening to me try and get assistance, ‘cause as the sniper turned around, he was pretty much able to carve his name and address in me chest and would have killed me too if Chatter hadn’t come around from behind him in a desperate rush and fired his rifle into the back of the man. They helped me as much as I let them, and lead them back to Laurance, Irene tried really hard to revive him, but it just wasn’t any use. They had heard the shouts for help and had come to try and give us aid, but where cut off by an ubercharged heavy charging for the old barn we had managed to capture off the red side and hell, they can do a lot of fucking damage, let me tell you now Slick.” Baz was now looking at Lee, watching her for any sort of reaction other than her listening. He really didn’t want pity for this, it was just coming all out and he was feeling very awful for opening a very tightly sealed can of worms.  
  
“I’m sorry to hear that, Baz.” Lee looked rather sad. She didn’t really know what to say to the man. She didn’t expect him to spill his guts to her like that, although looking at him it was clear he hadn’t intended to either.  
  
“I didn’t want to go back to the base but I was badly hurt, so I didn’t have much of a choice in it. Irene carried me in, while Chatter brought my brother’s body in otherwise I would have frozen myself to death standing around it, not wanting them to be right. The rest of the squad where all milling about, not really waiting for us, but listening to the soldier abusing me for being an annoyance and then having a go at my brother for wasting all his time in me on the base, and then saying he was due to slip up sooner or later… I just, I don’t really know how to explain…”  
  
Baz looked solemn, and Lee sat listening in interest to the rest of the scout’s story about himself and his brother. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Next thing I knew,” Baz waved his hands about in frustration as if he was trying to explain it to himself at the same time. “There was our team’s soldier, lying in a pool of blood on the floor, and me holding onto my Force-a-Nature, shaking like a friggin’ deer in headlights, bleeding from the enemy sniper wounds, the rest of the squad all moving away from me until Irene wrestled the gun off me and Chatter grabbed me and hauled me off to the medic bay as fast as possible.” He ran his hand through his short hair, “I was so messed up after that, I couldn’t tell if I was commin’ or going. I lost the most important person in the world.”  
  
 Lee just stared, surprised at the sudden out pouring of unbidden emotion from the older bloke.  
  
“That’s why I take a lot of this stuff seriously, about the safety of others on our team and stuff. I don’t want to lose anyone else like that again, especially now Chatter and Irene are like family to me, although anyone who’s on the same side as me long enough become rather like brothers and sisters, if you get what I mean” He looked up, closed his eye and sighed. “Look, all I’m trying to get at is you’re not alone. Sometimes thing happen you cannot change, and I’d rather not see them happen to anyone else.” He picked himself up with great effort, brushed down his pants and scuffed one of his shoes. “Anyway this ain’t getting stuff I have to do done. I have to do a quick check around to make sure we’re all gonna be safe for the night.”  
  
He started to walk away and then paused and turned back towards Lee who was now picking herself up, a lot more thoughtful than before.  
  
“Are you coming or what, Slick? You’re gonna need to learn this stuff too sooner or later, and I’d rather you learn it from me. After all that has happened today, it’s better to have a second set of eyes on this one to watch what I can’t see.” He actually smiled after the last part. “I don’t like the idea of being dead as much as you think I do you know.” He paused. “Oh and for the record, your secret is safe with me, I won’t tell. Besides, why you’re here is your own business and you have every right to fight like everyone else. It shouldn’t only be just men who fight; history is full of women who were more deadly than their male counter-parts. Maybe you’ll become one of them.” He winked, “now that would be somethin’ to make your folks proud of.” He nudged Lee in the arm in an effort to cheer the last remaining part of her up.  
  
He started heading out, Lee trailed slowly along behind. They walked out and around the base’s perimeter, Lee watching the other scout and how he spent more time looking directly into shadows, daring them to blink back and never once looking into the light. After a few hours of silence Lee spoke up.  
  
“My mother passed away. That’s what was in the letter.” She hung her head in shame, feeling guilty from leaving home.  
  
Baz pulled his hat lower over his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that Slick.”  
  
“Don’t be. I left because they were trying to send me away to live with people I have never met she was so ill. I joined to find my father and my brother who both where sent to this forsaken place.” She sighed. “I doubt I ever will if I am never good enough to get into combat.”  
  
“I wouldn’t quite say that. You just need a bit of time. You cannot expect a person to kill another willingly in such a short time.” He walked on a little bit then said, “I know some people and maybe they are able to help you find your father and your brother, although I can’t guarantee anything or be responsible for what they might find.”  He sighed. “I’ll be able to give you names and places they are stationed, after that, you’re on your own.”  
  
Lee grabbed him and squeezed; much to the older scout’s surprise. “Thankyou.”  
  
“Don’t mention it.”  
  
Kingston had been moping around most of the evening. The older members of the team where all engaged in a poker game and Yunai was more interested in playing with fireworks. Eventually the two scouts had come back and had joined him in the recroom. Baz flopped on the musty couch and took a beer off the soldier, clinked the bottles together and started to scull. Lee hesitated in taking one, popped the lid and attempted to drink it like the guys had. In the end, Kingston was patting her on the back and Baz was laughing at her coughing and spluttering she decided that she was going to take things more slowly with the amber liquid. When the supply of liquor ran low, they moved their little party to the mess hall kitchens, where they had a full supply of grog and munchies.  
  
After a few hours of drinking, and making fun of all the older members of the squad, Baz started laughing and waved his arms about merrily, “ I have this crazy idea guys, How’s about we make a Pact? One where we, as the youngest members all look out for our own on the battlefield, like watching each other are back, never leaving a man behind, that sort of thing, just the three of us?”  
  
“That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea!” Kingston nodded. He had drunk far more than the two scouts, but could hold his liquor a lot better and was enjoying himself more than he had ever had before. “Hey! I just got another one, we could have like a tattoo or something that mollifies the Pact?”  
  
Lee looked up and was slightly hazy, but cheered her ‘ok’ along with the idea. She was blending in and was so glad to finally feel like one of the team.  
  
“Hmm, not bad, not bad… but how we gonna find a tattooist all the way out here?” Baz mused, a silly grin spreading across his already rosy features. He noticed something shiny on the soldier’s finger of his left hand. “Hey, what’s that?” He indicated to the ring.  
  
“Oh this?” Kingston blinked, then he took off his ring and passed to over to the older scout. “I got this while I was training; it was for being the best of my unit.”  
  
Baz turned it this way and that, and got an idea. “Instead of a tattoo, how about a Branding?”  
  
“You know, I could live with that!” The soldier sloshed his glass.  
  
“What’s a branding?” Lee asked, realising something was afoot through her little light headed feeling.  
  
“A branding is where you burn an image or a number onto the flesh with a hot metal object.” Kingston explained. “It’s just as permanent as a tattoo, but never fades.  
  
“Oh.” Lee concludes.  
  
Baz picked up smouldering amber from the coals under the stove in the kitchen where they were hanging out and pressed the ring against it for a short while till it was blisteringly hot. “Ok, who wants to go first?”  
  
Kingston removed his vest and slammed a fist against the heart of his chest on the left. “Right here Scout.”  
  
“Ok, here goes…” Baz pressed the burning hot ring insignia against the soldier’s chest. You could smell the burning flesh as the metal hissed against the skin. It smelled familiarly of bacon. When Baz removed the ring a deep red burn of an eagle flying through a ring of fire was branded upon the man’s flesh. Kingston had flinched a bit, but showed no pain. He had never been burned before, so this was a new sensation. The soldier then took the ring off the scout and reheated the insignia and placed it hard onto the same spot on the scout. Baz didn’t even flinch or show any signs that it hurt. It stung, but the trick was to show that you didn’t mind it a bit. After being burned by pyros before at close range, this was nothing.  
  
Lee had watched the exchange impressed and was now so excited that it was her turn. She then realised, that she’d have to have it in the same place and went red. Baz knew she was a girl, but Kingston didn’t. This wasn’t going to go down too well if the soldier found out now.  
  
Baz, was aware of what Lee must have been feeling as he flicked her a smile, took the ring and the coal off the solider and stood in front of her. “Now, this is gonna hurt. You sure you want to go through with this?”  
  
Lee swallowed. For the first time in her life, she finally felt a part of something, felt like she belonged around other people. She nodded. “I’m ready.” She took a deep breath and puffed herself out bravely, slightly more exaggerated than she hoped due to the alcohol in her system.  
  
Baz tugged at her shirt collar till it was in the same place as where the guys had theirs, but was careful not to show too much in case he gave her away. Wouldn’t be too good to tell the soldier he was a she just yet, he thought to himself. Something’s will just happen over time, but this isn’t the right moment for it.  
  
The ring hissed against her soft flesh, Lee startled at the sharp pain, yelped and jumped back, giving the other scout a fright and making the soldier start laughing.  
  
“SHIT! THAT HURT!” Lee freaked out, rubbing where the mark was now permanent on her skin.   
  
Baz spoke between chuckled snorts, “Well I DID warn ya.”  
  
“SON OF A-” Lee hissed through clenched teeth, she gave the mark a look and realised that even though it hurt, it now officially made her one of the team. She smiled. It was nice to finally have somewhere she belonged.


	10. Truths

The Intelligence room was full of smoke and laughter. Currently, Lady Luck was in favour of Xermous, but she always had a liking for dealers.  
  
The spy dealt out a new deck for another round of Texas hold ‘em and everyone looked at their cards. Moriz scowled in his features at his hand, Damien fiddled with his shades in thought, Von didn’t look impressed and Chatter frowned.   
  
“Yer’ sher’ know how ter’ deal a shit hand, Xero.” The engineer tapped his fingers on the card table.  
  
“Heh, you can fucking say that again, mate.” Damien blew out a smoke ring as he started hard at his hand hoping his glare would make the cards change to something useful without any luck. “I fucking sware I’ve seen this card each time you’ve bloody dealt me a hand.”  
  
The spy just gave the sniper a blank stare.  He wasn’t going to mention the money the sniper had cheated him out of on the previous bet and was happy the man had lost it all to the Russian during this game. “Truly you cannot be saying that I’m not shuffling the deck correctly, hmm?”  
  
“No, what I’m fucking saying is you’re the worst card dealer this side of the picket fence.” Damien frowned and placed his cards face down on the table. “Fuck this for a game of soldiers, I fold.”  
  
“Hit me.” Moriz mumbled.  
  
Von tapped the table with his finger, indicating another card. The medic had been quiet most of the game, mostly because he had patients to worry about and other things on his mind.  
  
“Ah’s hell’s… I’ll raise yer’s.” Chatter tosses in a few chips. He has an Ace and a Queen, and if he still had nothing in the end at least he had a chance of Ace high if he was able to bluff his way through this hand.  
  
Xermous placed down the first card.  
  
“Hooley Dooley, I’m fucking glad I folded!” Damien laughed as the two of clubs smiled face up.   
  
“I fold.” Von placed his cards down.  
  
“I raise bet with little hard hat. I’m in.” Moriz moved a stack of chips in.  
  
The engineer gave him a dark look. Surly the heavy’s cards couldn’t be that fantastic. He had to be bluffing. “I’ll take that bet an’ raise yer’ another fifty.”  
  
The spy lolled his smoke, and placed down the second card. It was an Ace.  
  
“Struth.” The sniper seethed and stood up. “I fucking give up. Later gentlemen.”  
  
“I Zinck I should alzo call it a night.” Von also got up to leave. “I am almost at a breakthrough with my research and vell, it vill not do me any good to make many mistakes at zis point due to lack of sleep and interruptions.”  
  
“Very well. Yer’ still in Moriz?”  
  
“Last one little yellow hat.” The Russian said. “Sasha needs cleaning before she is laid to rest.”  
  
Xermous laid out a few cards. There was a loud groan from the remaining players.  
  
“Check.” Chatter tapped his fingers.  
  
“I also check.” Moriz drummed his also on his cards.  
  
The spy flipped the last card.  
  
“This is bullshit.” Moriz swore. He only had ace high. Chatter, on the other hand was smiling his arse off, he managed to bluff with a bad hand and pull off a straight flush.  
  
“Wer’ll what do you know… I guess I jest got lucky.” Chatter had surprised himself in that last hand.  
  
“I quit.” Moriz stood up as well and headed out, leaving the spy and the engineer alone. Xermous dealt another hand out between them.  
  
“So… I have ter’ ask,” Chatter began, “Why us? Yer’ said you had as stationed here for a reason, an now I’d like to know what that ther’ reason is?” he looked at his new hand and tapped the table.  
  
“It’s quite simple.” Xermous blew a smoke ring. “You are both survivors of your classes, that’s very rare. We need people who know how to stay alive, as we get a lot of beginners through here of many classes and they need good solid teachers.” He lay down a card and didn’t look too impressed with it.  
  
“How’d yer’ manage to get us stationed here?” the engineer persisted. “I know like hell we’re black listed fer’ a few misunderstandin’s…”   
      
“If you’re referring to the deaths of the soldier and the medic the two of you caused then yes, it was difficult to convince them to allow me to have you stationed here.” The spy sucked on his smoke. “But paperwork is not something that I find a difficult challenge.”  
  
“Now hold on ther’ a minute, that soldier was something foul an’ none of us saw ther’ kid’s reaction commin’, and that ther’ medic had what was commin’ to him.” Chatter spoke flatly, defending both his and the scout’s actions for misconduct.  
  
“I have gathered that.” Xermous sighed. “It’s pretty clear from observing you both for the past few months that there is more to those deaths than murder.” He flicked ash off the end of his smoke. “The boy is readable and since I knew the Soldier in question it was bound to happen to him sooner or later, unfortunately it had to be from the boy… I was expecting it to have been his brother.” The spy noticed the engineer’s surprise as he continued, “Yes, I knew they were related, no big surprise, it’s amazing what you find out when you read paperwork and you know the other party. Laurance was a great young man, but his brother is not a patch on him.” Before the engineer could retort, Xermous added, “ Basil is a lot more smarter, has more guile, and can certainly run rings around and enemy before they know what’s hit them… certain skills his brother had not learned or had possessed…. And it’s all thanks to you and your wife. However he doesn’t have his brother’s level of self-control, which makes him difficult to handle and associate with.”  
  
Chatter didn’t say anything. He didn’t know Baz’s brother that well, hell he didn’t know they were related till it was too late, but from what Irene had said of what he was like as a person before Chatter met him made him sound like a very intelligent and introverted person who was selective with whom he dealt with. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the spy knew him either, Laurance had been serving on the Blu side for over twelve years, at least every couple of bases you would run into someone who’d call Baz his name by mistake, the two men looking so similar to one another.   
“I also understand about the medic murder you committed,” Xermous went on, “After all, it’s common knowledge that you and your wife are unable to have a chi-” the spy’s voice was cut off when the engineer’s gloved hand enclosed extremely quick around the man’s throat.  
  
“MA WIFE AN’ ME ARE NOBODY’S DARN BUISSNESS…UNDERSTAND?” The engineer snarled. “JUS’ ‘CAUSE THAT BOY IS LIKE ER’ SON TER’ US DOESN’T MEAN YER’ GO PROD NOSEN’ INTER’ OUR PERSONAL LIVES.” Chatter’s voice was loud and threating, a tone he’d never dream of ever using on anyone unless the message wasn’t getting across but Xermous had just crossed the line. Stuff about Laurance was a given that everyone knew, but things about himself, Irene and Baz was stuff that he’d spent a long time trying to hide form other people, and was not impressed that the Spy has found out too much information on them.  
  
Point made clear, he let go of the spy. Xermous’s hands shot straight to his neck and rubbed it down, surprised he was still alive. He had seen and killed plenty of angry engineer’s before, but had never been on the receiving end of one with a murderous intent and lighting reflexes… then Xermous remembered who he was trained under and restrained himself, as forgetting that vital thing about the engineer was incitement for losing his own head. He’d have to tread carefully conversation wise in future. Chatter had already turned to leave, and Xermous just stared at the back of the man.  
  
There was laughter coming from the Mess hall, Chatter walked in the door way and a huge smile crossed his face. The boys had dug out the old dart board that was floating around the base and where having a small half-arsed game, Baz and Kingston wasting no time taunting and distracting Lee from making any remotely good throws, not that it mattered as they had been drinking and their aiming was terrible to begin with. Chatter did a double take; he didn’t remember Lee having short hair and put it down to the other two giving the poor kid a haircut themselves. It’s didn’t look too bad either; the Jonny Cash style actually suited the young man quite well and made him look his age. Chatter watched  for a little while, impressed the two new recruits where getting along quite well with a man that he knew well enough that wasn’t too keen on making friends of people whom he had never survived a battle with. They seemed to make the young man open up more than he and Irene ever had, and Baz was one of those who were only jovial with those he knew for some time.   
  
Baz spotted him and wandered over; taking the cigar from the engineer he was smoking and took a small puff. The scout swung an arm over the man’s shoulders and asked casually, “How’s the poker game?”  
  
“Hmm? Oh ok I guess, won a few hands, playin’ with a spy as a dealer is a very interestin’ challenge.” He took his cigar back, and gave Baz a jovial jab in the ribs and indicated Lee’s new haircut. “You’re doin’ I assume?”  
  
“Nah, Steve-o’s. Did you know, the guy used to be a barber before joining this dump?” The scout spoke conversationally, “Take’s all sorts doesn’t it?”  
  
“Sure does, partner.” Chatter smiled. The engineer felt more at ease now than he had a few moments ago around the spy. Sure, he and his wife could never have kids due to an incident she suffered in combat a few years ago, but the scout has always been treated and seen as one of their own and he’d never hear a word against either of them. His smile grew as he was pulled over to enjoy the game.   
  
Kingston had been drinking quite a lot and had been doing a lot of thinking about why he enlisted. He hadn’t done a lot of killing since then, but was contemplating a few things the Scout had spoken to him about earlier. Baz could read it on his face and grabbed the younger man by the shoulders. “Look Steve-o,” he said jovially as the solider looked rather glum, “What I mean is, haven’t you ever looked into another sort of hobby? Like one where you don’t have to throw away when it begins to start rotting?”  
  
“Now that you mention it, No. I like collecting the GIBS of those who I have blasted in battle. Gives me self-satisfaction that I nuked every last one of those good-for-nothing commie-maggots.” Kingston looked Baz dead in the eye full of extreme seriousness. “What else is there anyway? You can’t keep much else with you on a battlefield.”  
  
“Well, no your right there, you can’t take them onto the battlefield with you, but it allows you to take you mind off combat for a while when you’re not in it.” The scout sighed. The soldier hadn’t been in a real combat situation as yet, so there was plenty of time for him to discover that you will eventually wish you was somewhere else. “Look, let me show ya.” Baz patted the man on the back and motioned him to follow. “Sometimes you just need to take your mind off things when it gets a bit too much, is all I’m sayin’. Have a bit of a look at what the other guys are doing when they’re off duty, you’d be surprised.” Baz stopped glanced in the open doors of the medic bay where Von was playing a violin along to one of his favourite operas on the gramophone. “Besides listening to operas, doc here collects frogs, just like a butterfly enthusiast. Mind you it’s hard to find any around here in the middle of the desert, but when it rains, old doc here’s out like a shot lookin’ for them.” The scout gave the soldier a nudge and a grin as he imitated Von’s violin practice with a goofy expression, winking. Kingston sniggered; the scout’s impersonation was spot on.  
  
Baz started walking again, before the medic noticed that they were watching him, knowing if they were caught imposing on the man’s privacy they would be in for the lecture of a lifetime. The scout started talking again. “Chatter collects vinyl records when he’s hasn’t got his face deep in some new technology magazine and he also makes model planes, Xermous collects Biscuit tins.” Baz grinned like a little kid when he said the last bit about the spy. “He has a massive collection, and every time he comes across another one he send them back home to England. He also collects those little pin-up cards of the ladies you get in your smoke packets.” The scout chuckled, “Man you’d think the guy was lonely lookin’ in his room, pictures of pin up girls EVERYWHERE!” Baz snorted, “I’m glad he hasn’t found my baseball magazines yet!”  
  
“You collect magazines?” the soldier queried.   
  
“huh? Oh no, Irene, Chatter’s wife sends me them. She thinks I get a little too lonely without a girlfriend… I keep telling her I’m fine, but I think it’s her little joke she likes to have with me. Not that I mind, they are kinda interesting, especially the ones with the girls in garters holding bats….of course nothin’ beats the photos she sends me of her teams current engineer Adelaide, cor’ she’s an amazing young lady, pretty too.” The scout looked wistful. “Dated her a few times, took her to a few dances when things where quiet between bases, would love to see her face again, maybe ask her if she’s interested in courting on the proper.” He coughed. “Never you mind that, though.” They stopped in front of the training centre, Baz fumbled with some keys for the door opposite. “Xermous was nice enough to give me this workshop, Chatter didn’t want it, shame really it’s a nice place away from the noise of the base to work on whatever project they wanted to.”  
  
Kingston watched the scout jiggle and shake the doorknob. “Blasted thing’s stuck again.” Baz shouldered it a few times, but his body weight wasn’t enough to unstick it. Kingston motioned for the older bloke to step aside and rammed his full weight against it, ploughing through it was it violently swung open. Baz grabbed the soldier before he tripped right over onto the work bench that was littered with gun components.  
  
 Baz grinned. “This is what I do when it’s way too quiet and Chatter wants me out of the way. I rebuild and modify weapons. Just rifles mostly, I’m not too great when it comes to wires, electronics and other things that spark. I’d make a useless engineer; regardless of the amount of times Chatter tried to convert me.” He picked up one of his current workings and gave it to the soldier to inspect it. It was a reserve shooter, but the barrel had been modified in length and the bullet cradle had been replaced and was new and shiny. Baz took off his hat, put it on the bench and reached underneath for a large wooden box. Kingston’s eyes flicked off the gun for a minute, to the box, then gently placing the rifle down, he watched the scout lift another gun out of it. It was a polished scatter gun, but was clearly rebuild and customised. It had some beautiful engraving on the wooden handle, and some words scripted into the metal on one of the barrels.   
  
“Glass Cannon.” Kingston read it aloud, admiring the workmanship.  
  
“Isn’t she a beut?” Baz smiled. “She’s got a decent firing range, shoots 12 pellets instead of the standard 6, can blast a human skull out from the back of the head through the front in one to two clean shot close range, although I’d be damned if anyone would want to or would be able to get close.” He sighed. “I’m just not game enough to use her. I’d rather give her to someone who can.” He took the gun off Kingston gingerly and placed it back in the box. The soldier was impressed. If the scout hadn’t joined this stupid war, he’d have made an excellent weapon smith.  
  
The scout grabbed his hat, saw he smeared grease on it and snorted trying to rub it off. Kingston wondered why the man kept such an unusual hat, clearly it was falling apart and in serious need of repairs.  
  
“Do you mind?” Kingston asked, indicating the hat in the scouts hands.  
  
Baz blinked, “Uh sure, you can have a look. It’s nothing too great, just has a lot of sentimental value that’s all. I doubt the grease will ever come off.” He gave it to the soldier. Kingston smiled as he inspected the shabby Hermes. There was a name under the brim, indicating that it had belonged to someone else before the scout.  
  
“I will trade you something for this hat.” The soldier spoke quietly, still being engrossed in his observation of said headgear. “This hat has a great story to tell, and I would love to have it to show off to everyone.”  
  
“Uh well you know I’m not so… I’m kinda attached to it….” Baz frowned, he never had anyone interested in the hat as it was before and only ever in a sense that people wanted to repair it. It was a first he had someone mention it has a story attached to it too. He faltered. “I don’t think I could part with it, it was my brothers. Old memories, kinda thing you understand that right?” he then looked a bit thoughtful. “Mind you, it would hurt to make some new memories, I mean old ones are nice and all but… look I dunno.” He scratched the back of his head and shuffled his feet.  
  
The soldier patted the scout on the shoulder. “I understand. How’s about I make you a deal?”  
  
Baz looked that the soldier. “what sort of deal?”  
  
Kingston grinned. “Well I’m not going to repair the hat, I like it as it is, so maybe you can tell me the story behind it you have, and I’ll tell you the second story that hat now has.”  
  
“And?” the scout cocked and eyebrow.  
  
“We can start a new memory for you.” Kingston smiled, patting the scout and giving him a genuine shake of mateship. “One where you have great squad that you helped train, and turned into an incredible fighting machine!”  
  
“Now you’re pulling my leg here, man,” Baz started, but the soldier had taken of his grenadier’s soft cap and placed it on the scout’s head.   
  
“Do I sound like I’m joking, Sarge?” Kingston laughed.  
  
Baz froze and stared at the soldier. “How’d you find that-”  
  
Kingston looked sheepish. “Saw the stripes on your shirt sleeves yesterday during our battle against everyone else. Uh, what’s the little pip for?”  
  
Baz rolled the sleeve down so the stripes and the little crown showed. “Sargent-at-arms. It’s a special kinda solider. They don’t use it much these days, but they had to give me something for living so damn long. I never really thought about it much, I mean out here and what we’re fighting for, ranks kinda don’t mean anything unless it’s a power-thing.” Baz sighed heavily. “Ok, here’s the deal, you forget about ranks as long as you’re around me, and you can keep the hat.”  
  
Kingston saluted.   
  
“Ya can knock that off too, it’s not necessary. We’re in no man’s land, remember?” Baz yawned. “I think we shall call it a night hmm? Sleep some of the booze off man, you’ll feel better and maybe have a new hobby in mind.”  
  
Kingston nodded. It was the best suggestion he had heard all night.


	11. Message from Gravel Pit

Chatter groaned. He had drunk way too much in such a short time his head was pounding as if he was being beaten over the head with one of Baz’s bats. The smell of Epson salts waffled under his nose as he rolled over on his sleeping cradle and he slowly risked opening his eyes. Baz was sitting on his side of their shared quarters, ringing his arm bandages out, and then binding his wrists and arms, covering the scaring from some nasty burns that would never truly heal. Sometimes taking on pyros is not a good idea, and new young scouts usually learn the hard way of why the older ones all wear so many bandages on any exposed parts of their arms. Even with the wrappings, burns were still pretty severe, but at least they still had the use of their arms until the combat was over which was better than nothing at all. The young man noticed the engineers’ movement and nodded, but stayed pretty quiet and intent on what he was doing. If he didn’t soak the wrappings right, they’d become flammable. The idea of soaking them was to prevent them burning, or at least, burn slow enough for you to get to safety and drench yourself in water to put yourself out and the salts where to help protect your skin under them if you did score some in the process. Wax in the mixture also helped, but made them less flexible, so it was only optional if you could cope with it. Chatter watched a little while, eyes focusing in and out in tune with his brain of hung-over mush.  There was a soft knocking on the door, opening just a fraction, enough for both the engineer and the scout to look up and see Von standing there.  
  
“Both of you are needed in ze Intell room. Ve have a visitor and need you to be able to confirm he iz not ze red spy.” Von spoke, sounding as dead serious as a tree stump.  
  
 Chatter struggled to sit up and Baz just frowned. “What do you need us for? Can’t you work out if he’s a spy or not using normal methods?”  
  
“Vell now I knew zat you vould ask zat question.” The medic folded his arms. “We figured vhen zhey specifically asked to speak to Mr. Casey and Mr. Saberhagen Ve knew zat it vas worth having you zer incase he izn’t zer spy.”  
  
Both Baz and Chatter exchanged glances. There was only one person they knew that would call them by their last names, but it always paid just to make sure to be on the safe side. Baz had stood up, started speaking and making some hand gestures. “This visitor, he’s not about say 19, stands about yay high..” indicated a height with his hands roughly a smidge shorter than he stood, “Is thin, lanky and uncoordinated and has as whistle when he speaks due to his oversized buck teeth?” the scouts arms folded as the medic stared at him blankly.  
  
Von poked Baz in the chest a few times. “Are you sure zhat you’re not ze spy, hmm?” a smile crossed the medic’s face causing the scout to cringe. “Ve know you’re not, and after your description, ze young man ve have in zer intell room has been vouched for.”  
  
Baz had to double back on that conversation, his expression slightly thrown a tad by how fast the medic was. “Hang on, hang on… you mean littl’ Kev’s here? But I thought he was stationed down at the gravel pit?”  
  
Now it was Von’s turn to be confused. “Kev? Iz zat ze young man’s name?”  
  
Baz grabbed the medic and headed out, saying “ Look, why don’t we go down there, clear up the confusion, and find out what he’s here for yeah?” he glanced back at Chatter, who had rolled over and was snoring. Best to let sleeping engineer’s lie.  
  
Down in the intelligence room, Xermous was pacing around in front of a scout in Blu team uniform who was almost shaking in his seat. The spy had an air to him that radiated intimidation at the best of times, and the young man in front of him was feeling it deep down to bone level. Due to the amount of men the red team could get into their employment over the blue faction meant you could never be too careful when it came to spies. His head lifted as Von walked into the room with Baz trailing along behind him, the scout leaning against the door frame and yawning in his defence. His presence made the young man in Xermous’s company almost leap out of his chair, partly in fear of the spy, but mostly relief as it he was now in the presence of someone he knew who could vouch for him. If it was possible to hide behind a broomstick, this kid could do it twice. Kevin was thin and wiry, and seemed to be able to huddle all by himself. The kid wasn’t covered in freckles as opposed to being covered by one almost large full body one, and those teeth he had caused a lisping speech impediment. If any spy attempted to pass as the kid he’d have to be a fantastic actor or at least, be named Igor.  
  
Xermous looked at Baz and said, “We need you to confirm with us that this is indeed Kevin Maclduff form the Gravel pit base. Since he knows your name we assume you can identify him.” He glared back at the kid who shuddered back with dread. No man worth his salt ever liked a spy, or trusted one for that matter.  
  
Baz sighed. He didn’t want to humiliate the kid, since they need proof, oh well….  
  
“Corporal Maclduff, repeat after me; ‘Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers’…” Baz was smiling as he spoke, knowing full well what was going to happen next.  
  
Kevin straightened himself up, puffed out his pidgin chest and saluted. ‘Shure thing mither Casthy! Pether pipther pickth a peckh…”  
  
Von coved his mouth to stop himself from laughing. Right about now he’s have paid a few hundred dollars just to hear the kid come up with rhymes with the word ‘sausages’.  
  
Satisfied, Baz took the spy’s newly lit smoke, took a puff and folded his arms smugly; much to the annoyance of Xermous. “I dare any spy on the red team to recite tongue twisters when they impersonate a person whom in question has a known speech impediment to those who have met them in person.” He nodded in the scout’s direction, “You can stop now, Lill’ Kev. You’re vouchsafed.”  
  
Von coughed and restrained himself. He was a grown man after all and had a role of serious authority. Xermous gave him a dirty look.   
  
Baz realised that neither of them had actually got around to asking the kid why he was at their base. Eyes down casted, flicking a little ash off the cigarette, he asked; “So, Kev, why are you here instead of down Gravel pit?” his gaze crossed over the kids shoes, noticing the amount of orange dust, dirt and the wear in them hinted that he had arrived on foot and had at least taken two or three days to get to the fort. “Did something happen? Did Tilden send you?”  
  
“Sorth of. Missths Saberhagin’s orderths. We are at a loths there, redths came outth of nowhere sthr, took halfs of usth out. She thent me to get bacthup. Saidth to askth for youths an’ Mr, Saberhagin asth she knew youths will come.”  
  
“Mrs. Saberhagin?” Xermous looked surprised. He was not aware the engineer was married, even after going right through all the team’s personal files.  
  
“Chatter’s wife, she’s stationed at the Gravel Pit.” Baz raised an eyebrow. “As a spy I thought you were supposed to know everything? I mean, isn’t that the main part of your job?”   
      
Xermous pinched the end of the cigarette Baz had putting it out, as a sign of the younger man had just over stepped the line in the sand. “I do now.”  
  
Kevin continued, “ Theysh brought another Red Teams in fromfh here. Sinch then we’vesh been looshing ground.”  
  
“Well that explains where OUR enemy went.” Both Baz and Xermous exchanged glances. “Why didn’t you guys inform us sooner?”  
  
“Nosh radio constacsh.” Kevin replied. “All handsh have been on deksh shines, there’sh no break in the fightings.”  
  
“Then they are in grave trouble.” Xermous looked grim. “Basil, Round the squad get them organised onto the trucks and we’ll ship out as soon as possible.”  
  
The scout nodded. He knew exactly what to do. “Kev, help Von pack some supplies and load them in, I’ll send some help for both of you.” He didn’t wait for the other scout to reply, he ducked out of the intel room and stormed into the mess hall, slamming the doors open wide and shouting in a loud clear authoritive voice, “ALLRIGHT YOU LOT! WE’RE SHIPPING OUT!” Baz glanced around the room, “YUNAI, WAKE CHATTER UP, YOU AND MORIZ HELP HIM LOAD HIS SENTRIES ONTO ONE OF THE TRUCKS!” he took a breath, “SEAN, DAMIEN, HELP VON LOAD HIS EQUIPMENT INTO THE OTHER TRUCK, SLICK AND STEVEO YOUR GONNA HELP ME LOAD AMMO INTO BOTH TRUCKS!” when he finished shouting, everyone was looking at him. “WHAT ARE YOU ALL STANDING AROUND HERE FOR LOOKING LIKE DROWNING FISH? I GAVE YOU ALL AND ORDER!”  
  
Everyone in the room fled. The scout had a voice of authority, and they all could sense the creature rearing its head looking for a kill. He was not a sergeant you’d want to cross. He headed for the supply area of the base, the other scout and the soldier pulled in his wake and trailing behind him.  
  
The supply room was dusty and filled with huge creates, full of ammunition for miniguns, rocket launchers and sentries. Baz being the one who was weapon savvy on the base knew the whole inventory by heart and had already located several creates that had exactly what they needed to take, not only for them, but as extra supply for the Gravel Pit team. He grabbed them, slid them out, and directed Kingston to grab them, knowing that the man could at least lift the weight. Lee watched as a heap of smaller creates where slid out for her to grab, and upon opening one of the lids out of curiosity, realising that she was given all the spare weapon and explosives to load onto the truck. Baz gave her a look as he hefted a large create over his shoulder and Lee quickly closed the lid and grabbed the box and followed him out of the small supply depo.  
  
There was a lot of commotion around the trucks, everyone on the team loading things on, dashing off to grab other things and also arming themselves knowing that the second they arrived they were going to be knee deep in an active combat zone. Chatter was still half asleep, but assembling a large sentry gun in one of the trucks so they could use it for cover fire, shouting out tools he needed to make sure the guns where operational before they left. A small shock-spark licked his fingers causing him and Sean who was close to him to jump back, both exchanging half-hung-over glances wondering if it was safe to be doing this while clearly still under the effects of alcohol.  
  
Baz was issuing out some of the weapons, as the new recruits didn’t come with many of their own, unless, like Yunai, they were home built. The man had a knack for getting the right weapon for the right person and was never really wrong when it came to equipping the right one for the job. He handed Kingston a Rocket launcher with great effort, the weapon was rather heavy with most of the weight in the firing end, but the expression of glee could not be hidden form the soldier’s face as the scout explained what it was.  
  
“This puppy has a faster loading and firing speed and from what I’ve been able to test on it, can do a lot of airborne damage? Know much about rocket jumping? I bet ya do, you’re good at everything else, if not you’ll learn pretty fast…”  
  
Lee Listened just intently as the soldier was to him, explaining the reloading features and other useful bits about the weapon he had made specifically for the man.  
  
“I call it the Direct hit, but mate, since it’s yours you can call it ‘Lisa’ for all I care. Look after her yeah?”  
  
“YESSIR!” Kingston saluted. He was still mentally drooling over the weapon of mass destruction in his very hands. “I’ll gib the whole blasted lot of ‘em with this baby!” He kissed the barrel end.  
  
Baz had debated this for a while, but thought it was better to hand hid current pride and joy over to Lee. The engraved scatter gun gleamed like the hood of a brand new car. Baz explained the firing power, reload times and it’s nick name, then said; “After seeing some of the damage you caused point blank in the firing range the other day, this one is right up your alley – be smart with it, as the best damage output is up close- but don’t go committing suicide on me just to get one shot in ya hear, Slick?” He ruffled her short hair and smiled a genuine crooked grin of someone who has a lot of faith in someone who hasn’t found it in themselves yet.  
  
“Allright,”  Xermous nodded to his team, “Are we all ready? Then let’s get to work.”


	12. Assault on Gravel Pit

Two trucks rumble at high speed across the American desert, Damien in the driver’s seat of one, Von steering the other. The rest of the team where split between them, being rattled around and shaken about in the back with all the creates and other supplies. In the one with the assembled sentry gun, Chatter and Kingston where holding the machine upright so it wouldn’t have to be reassembled later if it got damaged. Damien thumped on the inner window, “We’re getting Fucking close now gents, Get ready to begin the assault.”  
  
Kevin, the gravel pit scout, dug through his pack and pulled out two cans of ‘BONK! ATOMIC PUNCH’ and handed one to Lee then promptly sculling the other one without any hesitation. Lee had never seen it before, looked at the can slightly puzzled, then back at Kevin and her eyes widened. The other teens’ eye that where a light dusty blue where now glowing pure neon baby blue. She stared back at the can and noticed the secret ingredient. “Radiation?! You’re getting me to drink something radioactive?!”  
  
“It’s not harmful, at least, if you drink it in moderation.” Baz spoke. He had his own unopened can, but it was labelled ‘Crit-a-Cola” and Lee wondered if it had the same amount of radioactive charge in it as the BONK can. “The glow wears off after a while, so does the slight invincibility, although if you consume too much the glow can be permanent… after that I can’t tell you what other side-affects might be from prolonged usage. I don’t know anyone who drinks it obsessively enough to find out.” He smiled. “My advice, save it till you are near an enemy sentry gun or need to make a hasty retreat, the invincibility will keep you alive long enough to run past or escape.”  
  
“Oh I see, so what does that one do?” She pointed to the one in his hands.  
  
“This? Same affects, but no invincibility, however makes all my shots extremely dangerous. Gotta be careful with this stuff mind, you can suffer some serious pain from even the most tiny bit of shrapnel. However, “ He nodded towards Kevin’s gun, which was a homemade sawn off he created himself and was very attached to, “Kev’s idea of attaching it to his gun is a stroke of genius, although I’m not quite sure how it works…But it does mean you won’t take the shrapnel damage while dishing out the extra powerful shot.” He stood up, steadied himself with Kevin following suit, both scouts making their way to the trucks doors. There was a silent nod between the scout and the engineer as the sound of explosions and gunfire drew closer to the rumbling of the vehicles.  They’d done this hundreds of time before and now it was second nature, but it still didn’t make things any easier. Leaping out of the back of moving trucks was dangerous, but sometimes it had to be done. You didn’t think about it much, just kept focus on the job that was in front of you. Baz slammed the Crita-Cola down in one long scull, took a deep breath and kicked open the doors, the sudden jolt of the truck throwing both him and the other scout out. Lee clutched a crate and Kingston and her both exchanged glances, neither of them ever seen anyone do anything so reckless before. Yunai and Xermous has done the same from the other truck, the spy cloaking the instant he touched the ground to blend in with the dust cover and vanishing from sight. Kevin had rolled and was now on his feet, Baz had landed upright and for a split second, Lee could see the lighting flash of green in his eyes before he darted off away from the trucks. Then they heard the orders coming through their communication lines, “YUNAI, KEV, HEAD FOR THAT RIDGE FOR CONTROL POINT A! DISABLE ANY SENTRIES YOU COME ACROSS! SLICK, STEVEO, GIVE THEM BACK UP AND DON’T DISAPOINT ME!”  
  
Chatter grinned. “Yer’d gone and heard themser’ Sergeant, Git movin’!” He gave a swift boot to the soldier’s behind, Kingston grabbing a hold of Lee in surprise and both of them tumbled out of the truck into the dust.  
  
“VON, HEAD FOR THE SECOND CONTROL POINT, THE THREE OF YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE IT NO PROBLEM WITH LITTLE REISTANCE! DAMEIN, CHATTER, COVER ME AND XERMOUS AS WE HEAD FOR POINT C! LET’S DRIVE THE BASTARDS BACK TO TURTLEFORT!” there was loud shouts and cheers coming through from the rest of the squad were confirmation that everything was a go. In the orange dust, Baz’s grin widened as it seemed to wink back at him and melt into the wind. That’s all he needed, the spy’s approval; well it was now or never.  
  
Damien swung the truck violently around Chatter lined up his wrangler and let fire with everything his sentry gun where equipped with, Rockets spiralling from the back of the vehicle, providing cover for his team and also making it impossible for the enemy to get close to them as they made head way for the rendezvous point.  
  
“YEE HAW! TAKE THAT YER’ SON’S OF BITCHES!” Chatter swore loudly and full of passion as sentry rockets and gun fire pelted the ground and the skyline, taking out several enemy soldiers who were stupid enough to attempt to rocket jump for them and the other truck. Moriz and Sean were also firing their weapons from the back, mingun fire tearing into limbs of charging attackers and bombs exploding rocks and other shrapnel making it impossible to hit them.  
  
Kingston scooped Lee upright and pulled her shirt trying to get her to get a move on before they got blown apart for standing around in the open, ducking and weaving gun fire, threading their way after the pyro and the other scout who were already miles ahead of them, charging head long into enemy sentry gun fire. Kevin bounded for the guns, jinked and leaped over them, leaving the gun’s slow rotation speed to lock on him instead of the pyro, who charged straight into them, flames licking the machinery, melting the wires and the metal into utter scrap, exploding parts of them here and there as they malfunctioned and died. The engineer’s manning the nest were taken by surprise, one of them taking a few swings at the scout, only to be laid out with one hefty swing of a metal baseball bat. Yunai brung around an axe and cleaved off one of the enemies arms clean off the body. Kingston fired a rocket into the fracas, the slight knockback throwing him off his feet, Lee pulled him up and then bounded ahead as the soldier rammed another rocket into the launcher and fired.  
  
A Red scout darted out of the shadows and begin to fire at Baz’s heels as the Blu scout zig-zagged his way towards the third control point. The enemy grinned knowing the scout was heading into a closed in area where there was no escape, except back though him. He didn’t expect the other scout to leap against the rock surface and use the force of his own gun to propel himself back of the head of him, and by then it was way too late to turn around as the Blu scout now fired a pistol shot right into the back of the Red scout’s head. There was no pride or skill in the kill and Baz wished he didn’t have to do it, but when it’s them or you there’s not much choice. He ducked back out of the dead end, and made his way along towards a small scuffle that was taking place between an old Blu soldier and a fast, young red demoman. The old soldier had the upper hand, but it was clear the younger man was toying with him, wearing him down ready for an easy kill. The enemy was distracted enough though for the scout to come up behind him and fire two shots from his Force-A-Nature into the back of his skull. The soldier flung the corpse aside and exclaimed, “About time you lot showed up! We we’re getting rolled!”  
  
“Nice to see you too, Major Tilden!” Baz flicked a smile, “Sorry we we’re not any sooner!” Both men ducked as a stray grenade hit the rocks behind them and exploded. Bits of rock flew every direction; luckily it wasn’t raining any of their limbs. “We may not have a very large squad, but rest assured we’ll send the bastards packing!”  
  
Gravel Pit wasn’t so much as a warzone as it was a land dispute, at least, not until a few months ago. The Reliable Excavation Demolition Company owned the mines and the satellite that was there, until they all but abandoned it after years of finding nothing really worth any value there. Builder’s League United took it over and oddly enough found something of extreme value. They discovered oil. It wasn’t long before RED was all over them with legal mumbo jumbo, and failing that, launched a full scale assault on the BLU oil rigs. All those who were assigned to the Gravel Pit team all had specific qualities relating to operating them and having the skills as fighters was an added bonus. Slowly, the team was being widdled away, as very few specialists in oil rigs where actually left in the whole company which meant it was impossible to replace them. Irene was stationed there as a supervisor or something, Baz couldn’t honestly tell you and to be honest, neither could her husband but it did have something to do with what her job was before all her sniper training for combat.  
  
Tilden motioned to the scout to follow, and both ducked down into a small trench line that connected to one of the old mines that lead to the third control point where the oil pump was operating, shaking the very foundations of the tower that supported it and the ground around it. The earth moved underfoot, small areas had opened up creating small and dangerous holes that where growing wider every day and threated to swallow the unlucky whole.  
  
 The old soldier swung an arm out to holt the scout’s advance, then pointed wordlessly to two demoman who were slowly making their way towards the control point, right under the nose of two members of the Blu Gravel Pit team who were occupied taking out enemies from a distance before they got too close to the rig. The enemy was just out of their view and if not taken care of soon, would put them in a lot of danger. Baz nodded at the soldier; both of them pulled out their melee weapons, the major a huge pickaxe and the scout a second-hand aluminium bat which he had found amongst the supply creates back on 2fort. Tilden motioned Baz to go around the long way, since being faster and a lot lighter on his feet, the younger man wouldn’t be heard heading towards them until it was too late from that direction and by that time the old soldier would have been able to attack them from the other flank and neither demolition men would knew what had hit them. Above them was a Blu Sniper and a Blu engineer, Baz working out who the defenders where the closer he slunk towards the rig and the enemy down below.   
  
He leapt out in front of the demomen, catching them by surprise and before they could attack him, Tilden’s equalizer swung around at them from head height, knocking one of them off his feet, the other man who ducked in time fell victim to Baz’s bat coming the other way. Both men managed to get back up and take wild swings at them, the scout dodging and weaving, whacking one man repeatedly with the bat with nasty accuracy and shattering bones as the metal connected with the human body. Tilden blocked the first swing from his attacker, ducked as a bottle smashed into the wooden framework of the tower and drove the axe-head right into the man’s diaphragm, tearing it out and wedging it into the enemies back as he fell at his feet. The man that was fighting the scout was faring much better despite now having a broken arm and a few other shattered bones, he was now fighting back and pushing the scout into a corner in which there wasn’t much room to move and fight back from. Swinging a bat is like swinging a cat around, you need plenty of space to do it and the Red demoman knew his quarry would be useless if his movement was restricted. A large wooden plank swung wildly at the younger man, the nail in the end of it catching the scout across the arm and tearing into the muscle as it pulled back for another swing. The Crita-Cola’s downside was rearing its ugly head as the pain shot through Baz’s body like he has completely lost and arm, even though he’d only been slightly clipped. There was no time to gather himself up from the negative affects as the plank flew from up and under, cracking into his jaw, the nail tearing the skin and luckily not lodging itself there, as that would have been fatal, even without the Crita-Cola. The pain train flung around again, only this time Baz swung the bat in the way and held the man back from striking, the enemy pushing all his weight and brute strength into breaking the stalemate and Baz was holding out as best as he could, but being physically trained to run and for flexibility had incredible drawbacks when it came to a duel of force. The scout’s feet skidded back in the dirt, his light weight failing to get a proper foothold until the demoman had him completely pinned against a wall of stone. The man grinned and the scout sneered, Baz not hesitating to spit blood into the enemies face. The Red demoman looked disgusted, and his free hand flung around and struck the scout with a bone crunching and rather sickening crack. The ferocity of shock and pain caused Baz’s arms to weaken their hold on the bat, which was now slammed hard into his chest along with the hard wood from the pain train and the weight of the enemy.  
  
The Red engineers were a ferocious bunch, even without their sentry guns to protect them. Kevin, Lee, Yunai and Kingston had driven them back towards the edges of the pit, and where now up against a wall of widow makers and frontier justices. They couldn’t attack them directly anymore, otherwise it would be running right into a wall of bullet filled death.  
  
“Goth any ideath?” Kevin asked them from their little fox hole that had them just low enough to be out of the firing range. “I’m all Bonkth outh, stho…”  
  
Lee dug the can the scout had given her on the truck from her baseball bat bag. “I almost forgot about it.” She looked at him intently. “What do you want me to do?”  
  
Kevin smiled. “For a starth, drink it. Useth the invincibility to run aheadth of uath, take all the fireth and we’ll backth youth up.”  
  
Kingston cut in at this point, “No hold on! Noone’s gonna run ahead and commit virtual suicide!” the soldier had decided that since the sergeant wasn’t there with them, the younger boy was now his responsibility and sending the kid in front of them to be a meat shield didn’t sound like a good idea to him at all.   
  
“If we time it rightth, no oneth willth be hurth.”  
  
Kingston poked Kevin in his scrawny little pigeon chest. “Not on my watch, Maggot.”  
  
“Mmeelph mow mmmuout mussif men?  Memmhummpph mmmumph mrmmmtummph…” Yunai started trying to explain another idea, gesturing and trying to get it across, but only achieved blank stares.  
  
“I’ll do it.” Lee opened the can. Kingston looked surprised. “Do we have much of a choice?” she quickly added before the soldier could respond. Kingston opened and shut his mouth a few times wordlessly. He then nodded.  
  
“As you wish.”  He didn’t sound too happy with the plan.  
  
Lee winked. “No sweat! I’ve got you watching out for me right?” and for a few seconds she forgot she was supposed to be pretending to be something she wasn’t and kissed the soldier on the cheek before drinking the can and leaping out over into the gunfire. The soldier blinked in slight shock, then snapped back to the real world, pretending that didn’t happen and leapt over and out of the dugout to make use of the scout’s distraction, to hopefully make sure the younger man was kept from harm.  
  
“Nighghhh.”  
  
“Heh hehhahahahaHAHHA!”  
  
The demoman was laughing with glee as the sound of ribs cracking where omitting from his trapped quarry. Baz was losing the test of might, and was going to be crushed to death if he didn’t think of something. It was practically impossible to think with a clear head when your whole body is screaming like you had run it through a pie mincer. The demoman was laughing harder now, knowing full well that his foe had consumed one of those blasted radioactive drinks the scouts on his own side where addicted too and was enjoying the feeling of domination over a weakened opponent, who couldn’t fight back due to the horrendous pain. It was all in the eyes, they were a dead giveaway.  
  
CRACK!  
  
“ARHHHH!” Blood coughed up as a rib snapped internally, the scout struggling not only with the enemy, but trying to not black out. He could REALLY use some help now and he wasn’t anywhere near Chatter’s sentry guns and no longer capable of calling for help.  
  
There was an unholy organic sound behind the enemy demoman, and under all the laughter and heckling the scout was surprised he heard it at all.   
  
“BOO.”   
  
The demoman froze, but then it was too late, the slight flicked of attention gave Baz the chance to break free and shove the man with what little strength he had left a few feet backwards before the bullet blasted the man’s brain outside of his head.  
  
“I do believe I got some of his blood on my suit.”  
  
Baz gave the spy a weak smile, before almost collapsing in a heap. Xermous grabbed a hold of him before he hit the ground.  
  
“Hold onto that thought young man, we still need alot from you yet.” His face showed slight annoyance that the scout’s blood was now all over his new polyester suit, but it was gone in an instant when he realised the man was struggling to breathe. Tilden, now having found where the scout had got to, helped the spy lift the young man onto his feet and head for the oil rig, where he knew the engineer was at least be able to provide some first aid, enough to keep the man alive.  
  
  
Bullets scrapped at Lee’s heels, skimmed past her face as she jinked and weaved into the gunfire. The invincibility was pain free, but it didn’t mean you still didn’t take a few hits from well-aimed rifles. From behind, bullets and rockets were fired back in response, bowing some of the enemy engineers into tiny little pieces. Unfortunately everything was speeding as a blur around her; she couldn’t aim at anything so she just stuck with getting in the way of their cross-fire. That was, until the BONK started to wear off. She wasn’t aware that it had, until a stray bullet pelted right through her upper thigh, causing her to go face down into the dust. The pain free moment of freedom was now filled with agony she had never felt before.  
  
Kingston saw her go down and charged forward firing as rapidly as his rocket launcher would allow till he reached her, hefting her up with his free arm he stood in front like a shield and kept firing relived his teammate was still alive. Yunai ran past him with the flames licking the end of the exhaust pipe of the flame thrower, pushing the engineers back into a retreat.  
  
“Are you all right?” Kingston asked, afraid to turn around in case his team mate was in a bad state. Lee used him to haul herself upright, although if she had to run anywhere it wasn’t going to be very far.  
  
“Alive, at least.” She looks at him when he flicked over a worried glance “Thanks.” She smiled. Kingston grunted, but he was very happy the scout wasn’t too badly harmed. It hadn’t taken him long to fit all the pieces together either that Lee wasn’t a boy, the kiss had gave the kid away.  
  
Thunder rolled. They both looked up at the sky as it began to pour turning the battlefield into mud and slush. Hopefully, the rain will drive the Red’s back long enough for both Blu teams to regroup, count their losses and work out a plan to defend the rig.  
  
Tilden and Xermous both dragged Baz to where the engineer and the sniper where defending the rig from. The platform was high up and gave a pretty good view for defenders to prevent incoming assaults but it also left you blind to everything that was happening directly under the tower. The sniper spun around at the approach of footsteps with her gun raised, you never knew who could come and attack you from behind these days, an alert sniper is an alive one. She lowered the rifle when she saw the wounded scout.   
  
“SHIT! I didn’t know they had arrived?! Why didn’t you fucking tell me?!”  She swore, also catching the attention of the engineer, who was also a young woman, prompting her to turn around also. They made room for the men to lay the scout down by the engineer’s dispenser, knowing the radiation help heal slightly but also making it easier for the engineer to grab any medical equipment she needed.  
  
“Irene, we need your help to drive them back, they’re already on the retreat, and we need them to keep running.” Tilden spoke, full of high authority. The sniper glanced at the injured man and nodded. There was no way they were gonna hurt HER Littl’ Slugger and get away with it. She pulled her hat down over her long brown waves and followed the soldier down the ramp ways of the tower. Xermous looked up at the engineer who was already fussing over his teammate, satisfied that he was in capable hands he walked down the ramp, but only part of the way and cloaked himself, thinking it may be best to hang around in case the Red team tried to take the tower while it’s defences where slightly down.  
  
“Why do we always end up meeting this way love?” The engineer sighed as she inspected Baz’s wounds. She had long red curls that covered her shoulders and a gentle expression of concern.  
  
Baz coughed and smiled as best as he could with a busted jaw. “Sorry Addy, I’ll bring my best suit next time eh?”  
  
“Shh Basil. Otherwise it won’t set properly.” She was relived he was still ok enough to be cracking jokes with her, even after looking like he’s been crushed by a steamroller. That was the man she loved for you, he’s keep making jokes till the day it killed him. Adelaide shook her head and continued with her first aid.


	13. The Lull

It Poured. It was a blessing in disguise. The enemy had pulled back, far less many of them as there had been. It was a temporary cease fire, but for who knows how long it would last.  
  
Chatter brushed himself down, only to smear oil, mud and blood across his clothes. He clicked his teeth in frustration. Why hadn’t they been called to help sooner? Why didn’t they call for the Hoodoo team as well? When they had all made it back into the Gravel Pit base itself, it was clear the team was even smaller than his team and was amazed they’d been able to hold them back. The Red side mustn’t be training them like they used to, or they honestly didn’t expect to take on a small group of Blu battle veterans who had been surviving by the seat of their pants for the last however many years it had been. The Gravel Pit team, consisted of one soldier, one scout, one medic, sniper, spy and an engineer… who were in charge of operating and defending an oil right in the middle of the American west. Something was seriously wrong with that picture he had decided, especially since his wife was among them and had never mentioned anything in her letters. He was going to have words, although he suspected, he would be on the losing end of the argument. First thing he did though, was hug her and give her a kiss, as being away from her for so long meant there were other things he would be thinking about before the other important questions had to arise.  
  
“I’m so glad ter’ see yer’ alright, Love.” He hugged his wife tight; there was nothing that could pry him away at this point, even if his own wife was holding the crowbar to do it with.  
  
“I’m so happy you finally arrived.” Irene smiled softy, smearing dirt off her husband’s cheek and brushing dust off his shoulders. “We were worried they’d take the rig off us for a minute there.” She saw his expression and knew exactly what he was going to say next, and jump in with, “I’ll explain everything later, it’s all to do with our communication systems, they’ve all gone down and we’ve been too busy fighting to find time to make repairs.” She hesitated, “Although since you’re now here, you might be able to help Adelaide out in getting them all back online.” She kissed his cheek, meaning that it was the end of the discussion.  
  
“Adelaide’s here too?” Chatter looked surprised. Last time Baz said anything about her she was at the Freight base helping them get a few of the old rattlers up and running to ship goods in and out of the warzones. Chatter also never really asked much how things were going between them, reason being on the previous occasion he pried into it not only did Baz tell him to mind his own business in the most chilly way known to man, Irene gave him such a lecture that Chatter was wishing some rock or something would drop from the sky and hit him hard enough that he’d finally hear the end of the conversation.  
  
“Yes, for the past few weeks. We’ve been under siege for some time so I haven’t had much time to catch up with everything and everyone.” Irene just bubbled with excitement. “Tilden’s daughter Leonine got married a little while ago too and I’ve been dying to see the photos she sent, but there’s just been so much to do and so little time....” And that was Irene in a nut shell, always looking on the bright side, keeping in touch with EVERYONE and knowing EVERYTHING whether it was relevant or not. She probably knew more about Adelaide and Baz’s relationship than they knew themselves. She was just that kind of lady and it was one of the many things Chatter loved about her, and wished didn’t exist at the same time. It was a sad to know that they were childless, and were never going to have kids of their own due to a nasty incident involving some high explosives which left both Chatter and Irene in the worst physical mess. But they survived and pushed on, one day hoping that once this war was over, that maybe they’d be able to adopt one to call their own. Till then, there was Baz, although he was more in need of guidance than a family and was sometimes more trouble than what it was really worth.  
  
Irene kissed her husband. “Come on, get yourself cleaned up and we’ll take a break while we have a ceasefire. We’ve got to work out a plan before the rain eases off; chances are they’ll be back.” She patted him on the back as they moved into another area of the base. They walked past the small infirmary and a smile crossed the engineer’s face. Baz was sitting there pretty patched up, talking away to Lee about something or another, Kingston sitting between them and listening and laughing. Chatter wondered what would happen right now if anything happened to either scout and how well the soldier would cope. The young man seemed to open up around them and actually came across as normal and quite likeable than when he first arrived at the base. Like his father had once said, the speed the world changes, depends on where the drops of rain fall. He never quite understood that, but now he believed he was beginning to.  
  
“Ya know Frances, sometimes I swear ta gad, yer’re an idiot.”  
  
“I keep telling you all, I’m not cut out for this ‘Killing business’ I’m an actor not a knife welding maniac.”  
  
Chatter and Irene walked into the small mess hall, where Gravel pit spy was holding a book on the great works of William Shakespeare, pestering the team’s engineer who had parts of a radio communicator strewn all over the table. Adelaide was concentrating on some rewiring, and was not in the mood to listen to Frances’s soliloquies.   
  
“Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily a' turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty? sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers in the reeky painting, sometime like god Bel's priests in the old church-window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?”*  
  
“I told you Frances, I’m busy. We need to get these back online, otherwise we’ll be caught out again by the enemy and we can’t afford it a second time!”  
  
“PFFT.” The spy rolled his eyes. “You never did appreciate the fine arts.”  
  
The red head gave him a glare, which pretty much said, while I appreciate good theatre as much as the next person, there is a time and a place for it.   
  
Irene laughed. “Adelaide, you’ve met my husband, Frances, this is my husband Jethro.”  
  
The spy reached out to shake Chatter’s hand. “So you’re this lovely ladies ball and chain eh?”  
  
Chatter frowned. He crushed the man’s hand in the handshake.  Frances shook his hand gingerly after he let go.  
  
The spy then smiled, completely unbidden by Chatter’s instant dislike of him, said, “Irene tells me you have our old ‘stone faces’ brother chasing you around. You haven’t been involved in any of his silly games yet have you?”   
  
“What games would those be?”  
  
Baz stood in the doorway, arms folded, slouching as he leaned against the frame, a crooked smile spreading across his face. “If we’re talking about Laurance and his idea of fun against mine, I’d say playing my little mind games are a lot less embarrassing all round.” He winked. “And they also involve you keeping ya clothes on in the snow too.”   
  
It was something you had to get used to, even Baz had a hard time on occasion that his brother had been around quite a lot before Baz had joined, and even now he still bumped into people he had never met before who had known his brother quite well.  
  
“Actually if I remember correctly Baz, wasn’t it you who was the only person to ever accept the race in the snow and upped the challenge by running in nothing but your shorts?” Irene rested her hands on her hips, her sarcastic grin never budging from her features.  
  
The scout slouched and shrugged. “Hey, it was a game we used to play as kids back in New York. Besides, no one knew we we’re brothers, and it was nice to do some bonding with him after all that time he spent in service.” He walked over passed them and over to Adelaide and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Can’t blame me for missing me older bro.” his arms wrapped around her shoulders. “Can’t blame me fer missin’ ya either.”  
  
Adelaide stopped what she was doing and sighed. “Yer gonna have ter stop makin’ fun of my accent love. I’ll make yer reget it one day.” She kissed him anyway. “Now what is it yer wantin’?”  
  
“Well, I kinda want two things, but one of them is gonna have to wait… when they’re no ears listening.” He gave her a wink, then added, “ The other is kinda a problem I really can’t fix on the account that it’d sound better coming from either you or Irene, but chances are if I ask Irene…she’d make me do it myself.” He stood up straight, and rested one of his palms on the table. “Whenever you’re free of course, I wouldn’t want to get in your way too much I understand if you have things to do. You see I have this…recruit who’s pretending to be something that they’re not. They have great potential, but I think that it’s being lost under all the other-” he waved his free hand around trying to think of a word, and Adelaide was finding it hard to hide an expression of mild amusement as her Bo was skipping around what he thought was a delicate subject area, “- outside influences. They need someone to tell them it’s ok to be themselves, I guess that’s kinda it really.”  
  
“And what’s stopping yer’ from telling them yerself?” the engineer asked smugly. There had to be a reason, no matter how dumb it might sound for him to be asking this, otherwise he’d have gone and done it already.  
  
“It’d sound better coming from a Lady.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
“I’m wondering if you do. You see I can’t really tell you ‘cause I promised to keep it a secret, but if it’s all the same it’s be better if say they spoke to someone who’s been fighting this war as their own gender… mind you can’t tell them that you know they’re female of course. That’d give away that I kinda told.”  
  
“What’s in it for me?”  
  
“Besides me not asking you other stupid questions for the rest of the time I’m here? Don’t answer that.” Baz was glad she chuckled at that, “No, my other thing for later hopefully will make it worth your while.”  
  
Adelaide looked passive. “If it’s anything to do with yer’ cooking, I’d be happy to do it for nothing.”  
  
Baz looked hurt. “Hey that was ONE time. I didn’t mean to set fire to the table as well when I lit the angel food cake. No this is kinda something you know, for us.” He gave her a kiss. Before walking off he said, “I think those wires have something to do with that funny whirring bit that’s to your left that isn’t well, whirring.” Adelaide threw one of the buttons at him just to make him go away. She knew if she listened to him about anything electrical, it had a tendency to stop working altogether.  
  
When the scout was out of earshot, Frances remarked, “I honestly have no idea what you see in that… that thing.” The spy pretty much spat the words out.  
  
The engineer smiled sweetly under neither the locks of red hair, “For one, he can act better than yer can.” She looked up just to see the spy look insulted. Good thing he had no idea what she meant by that. If there was one thing the spy couldn’t do, it was dance around the truth of something like her sweetheart could. He’d never be able to tell a direct lie to anyone so he just avoided it altogether. Frances really needed to learn how to do that, and maybe he’d rein-act something other than Shakespeare. She sighed, this wasn’t getting anything fixed. Duties called.  
  
Kingston had spotted Tilden heading down the corridor a little while ago and had left Lee on her own in the medic bay. It had been awkward between the two of them since Baz had left, Lee not sure what to say about the whole kissing thing, and the fact Kingston hadn’t mentioned it was getting under her skin. She slipped up big time, and was wondering when the can of worms was going to spill open.  
  
The small base was far from quiet, the sounds of the oil rig pumps drowned out most of the ambient background noise, but the level of chatter could still be heard echoing through the halls. It wasn’t uninviting either. She could hear Von talking to the other team’s Medic in German which to her sounded like a beautiful mysterious language, there was a quieter more subdued conversation from further along the hall from Chatter and she guessed the female voice might have been his wife. There was the sound of laughing from her own team’s Heavy and some swearing that could only belong to Damien followed by a loud belch and more laughter. The boys by the sounds of it had begun celebrating their little victory with a card game and some booze already.  
  
“Hey Slick, you ok in there? You look a little lost.”  
  
Lee turned her head and smiled in a way that you’d hoped the person you were talking to couldn’t read your mind and see all your dirty little secrets. “I’m fine, honest!”  
  
“Oh really? So then how come you’re sitting here on your own when there’s a party going on two rooms over?” Baz laughed uneasily. “Ok not so much of a party, more like uh.. how’d Roo-boy put it? ‘ A piss –up’.”  
  
Lee grinned. Just when you thought you were almost on your own, there was always someone around to make you feel at home. “Nah, I’m not big on card games.”  
  
“Heh same here, but there’s no decent transistor in this place to liven things up with a bit of dancing.”  
  
Lee looked at Baz puzzled. “You like dancing?”  
  
“That’s the best bit when you’re out on the town with your girl isn’t it? Or am I really out of the loop on this one?” the older scout frowned. “Hard to keep up to date with the outside world when you’ve been doing this for quite a while.” His expression lit up again, “it doesn’t matter anyhow, I honestly think they’re getting ahead of themselves. The second that rain stops where up the creek without any paddles.” He shrugged and laughed, “But hey, who am I to tell them not to enjoy peace while it lasts eh?”  
  
Lee relaxed. You couldn’t help it. Being in Baz’s company was something that made you feel at ease.  
  
“So you’ve met the other team yet?”  
  
“Only Doctor Heinemann, that’s about it. He seemed ok.” Lee shrugged. The Gravel pit doctor didn’t really say much.  
   
“Ah, how’s about we go and join the party then? You might meet a few more.” He studied her expression. “Hey look, you gotta get used to working with complete strangers. You’re going to find out your life is going to depend on them as much as there is going to depend on you. Yeah sure, it’s a lot of pressure, but this isn’t a game, it’s not like you can respawn when you’re shot and at the end of the day go home. You have to realise people die and don’t come back. It’s gameover- no refunds, get my drift?” he sighed. “You know I bet you didn’t ask for this to be all kind of dumped on your shoulders, but you’re actually in a role that holds a lot of responsibilities. Yeah ok sure, scouts don’t live long, but that’s because a lot of them are stupid morons who can’t find their own arse with two hands. You’re not one of them… at least I hope not.” He glanced at her and watched her scowl. He knew calling her out like that would hurt her pride. He wasn’t stupid, he knew she was capable; she just needed a little push.   
  
Some footsteps stopped in front of the doorway. Adelaide leaned forward and smiled. “So this is yer’ new protégé?”  
  
“Indeed. Lee, this is Adelaide, Or Addie for short. Addie, this is one of the recruits, Lee. He’s the one I was telling you about.”  
  
“Charmed.” The engineer shook Lee’s hand. Lee’s eyes widened. She had heard and seen other woman sign up for service, but had never actually seen any out on the field until now. The engineer had hair of fire and green eyes that felt like they bore into your soul. Lee swallowed. Addie reminded you of one of those gypsy fortune tellers you read about in those tacky woman’s magazines telling you how happiness is all about not pleasing your husband, but pleasing yourself. The one’s your mother’s always talked about with their neighbours but since not doing what your husband wanted wasn’t the done thing you never actually did any of the advice that was offered in your own home. If Lee was a REAL boy, she’d be the lady your mother warned you about. One thing was for sure, she had independence written all over her and her expressions, something Lee was dying to be like on the inside.  
  
She was also short, round and rather bubbly in her speech, something a little unexpected for someone who worked with machinery all day. “So tell me, how fast are yer at runnin’? A good scout knows how ter run. Baz hasn’t made you run any obstacle courses yet?”  
  
“Hey, come off it Addie. That last time was because Macca was trying to swindle you out of fifty dollars!” Baz exclaimed. “I wouldn’t be so cruel… ok maybe I would, but I haven’t ok?” he folded his arms in protest. “Anyway you need to learn to walk before you can run love, and Slick here needs to learn a few other things to clear his head a bit before he can shoot too.” Baz ruffled Lee’s short hair. “Anyway as per usual I have things to do, nothing stops for the wicked eh?” he gave Adelaide a kiss before walking off. For Lee things clicked slowly into place.  
  
“So, how’s yer’ aim?” she asked Lee, pulling out a pistol and twirling it. “I’d like ter say I’m a decent shot, but you never know in the rain.” She could see Lee’s eyes following the gun’s spin as she toyed with it in her hands. “How about we shoot a few tin cans an’ say, make a small wager?”  
  
“Alright. Hey, can you show me how you did that… with your fingers? That’s pretty cool.”  
  
The engineer laughed. “Maybe. I don’t really know if it’s teachable.” She winked. “Give me two and maybe yer’ll see somethin’ more impressive.”  
  
Lee got up and followed the engineer to the mess hall, and Adelaide dug around one of the boxes labelled ‘TRASH’ and pulled out some old soup cans. While she did so she started a conversation. “So, wher’ yer’ hail from? I’m from Illinois.”   
  
“Boston.” Lee replied.   
  
“Ohh yer’ and Baz are baseball rivals then. I hope he don’t pick on yer’ much for that. He hates them RedSox with passion. Personally I’ve never seen a game, but one day I’d love ter’ see one in those big stadiums.” She placed some of the cans down on a faraway table in a row and a few in some hard to aim spots. “I grew up on a Cattle farm; it was a tough life raising free range beef, a lot of falling off horses and being gored by bulls, that sort of thing.  After I was old enough to leave for collage, my folks didn’t believe in getting’ a higher education, they all thought I’d take over the farm like my mother before and her mother before that, they kept doing everythin’ in their power to keep me from leaving them. One day a recruiting party came into town, milled about fer’ a little while, realising our little town didn’t have any supplies of men or young boys to send of inter’ battle, they were pretty fast to pack up ter’ leave. I snuck out off our property, cut my hair short, there wasn’t any need to practice talkin’ like a boy, I swore worse than half the old men in the town put together, and joined up with them after they made a stop two towns over.”  
  
She walked back over to Lee then said, “Ok, show me what yer’ got.”  
  
Lee, who had been listening to her, was now thinking several dozen thoughts all at once. Raising her pistol, she fired, the bullet bounced off the table in front of one of the tins and imbedding in a wall.  
  
The engineer snorted. “I can see yer’ not concentrating.”  
  
“Well, no, not really.” Lee admitted. “So, did you lie about yourself to join?”  
  
“Indeed I did.” Adelaide raised her pistol and fired, taking two tins out. She twirled the gun and fired again, taking out another three. “I joined and was amazed that they offered engineering as a profession. Till then the only thing I’d ever seen with wires in it was my Ma’s ham radio, so it opened a whole new world to me.” She blew the smoke from the gun powder coming out the end of the pistol. “Technology is the future an’ I want ter’ be involved in it.” She sighed. “It was at a cost. I couldn’t let them know the real me, no matter how much I wanted. I felt alone, that was until I was assigned to me first squad. Then things started to get interesting.”  
  
Lee shot two of the closest and easier can targets. “What do you mean?”  
  
The engineer laughed. “I wasn’t ther’ only one to have a secret. Everyone did. Turns out, over time, they all eventually gave it away… and then, I wasn’t alone anymore. They were all woman, just like me. Some ran away from slave factories, one of them was lookin’ for her husband, another looking fer’ her son. All in the one squad… all by accident.” She looked like she was taking a small stroll down memory lane. “They we’re fierce fighters too. All fought dirty. And when the other side all expect yer’s to all be male and fight like men, they’d get a nasty shock to learn ther’ enemy isn’t afraid to kick them in the nads, and keep beating them till they can no longer stand upright. They REALLY showed no mercy. Some of them made those stories about Elizabeth Bathory**, Countess of Transylvania and Cleopatra queen of Egypt seem like children’s tales. Nothing is scarier than a woman’s revenge.”  
  
Lee paused to think about all this.  
  
“Course, ther’s always the stories about Queen Elizabeth of England. Thou no one can ever seem ter’ agree on the facts ther’.” She could see thoughts all swimming around the scout’s head. She was mighty proud of herself, maybe the kid would finally feel comfortable fighting as she is rather than as something else. Adelaide had to admit though, Lee did pass for a pretty convincing boy, but once she started to grow out from the top people where going to notice. You can’t be broad in the shoulders and not end up with a generous bust sooner or later; it was something she knew all about, being a late bloomer herself.  
  
She left the hall for a few minutes, just to let the scout absorb everything. Just outside the doorway, she bumped into Baz, He was smiling in a ‘you devious little bitch’ sort of way.  
  
“Yer’ a BAD LIAR ya know that don’t ya?” he mocked. “I wanted ya ter’ have a few words with the kid, not fill her head with utter bullshit.”  
  
Adelaide shrugged. “We’ll it worked, din’t it? Yer’ can see the little wheels spinning back thar’, she’s thinking hard about it.”  
  
“Yes, but you didn’t need to lie.”  
  
“It wasn’t really lying, as so much as yer’ know… adlibbing.”  
  
“I swear sometimes Addie you’re more slippery than a snake.”  
  
She reached up and kissed him. “Yes, and yer’ love it.”  
  
Lee headed out of the hall and saw them both standing there. Maybe it was time to come clean. She had had a think about it and maybe being herself rather than pretending to be a boy wasn’t such a bad idea after all. It would lift a lot of weight off her shoulders certainly.  
  
“Um..Addie, I mean, Adelaide, I’m going to be honest with you,” Lee rubber her arm. She really looked as if something was preying on her mind.  
  
Adelaide winked at Baz before turning around to face the scout. “Yes?”  
  
“I’m not actu-”  
  
Her voice was cut off by the wail of sirens.   
  
“Shit! I KNEW they’d be back! And most of them are shit-faced by now!  What are we going to do?” Baz hissed.  
  
“Wer’ll grab anyone who’s able to stand up and cock a gun, wer’ got no other option.”  
  
“Right. You do that, I’ll grab Chatter and Irene and we’ll start heading out to stop them getting anywhere near that Rig. Slick, Kingston’s with Tilden down by the intelligence room, they’d be running up to us anyway, but go meet them and let them know we’re heading out!”  
  
 _*Shakespeare monologue from ‘Much ado about nothing’_  
 _** she was the most notorious female serial killer in history, or more importantly, the first real world female vampire._


	14. Train Wreck

Baz swung the door wide, and then pulled it closed just as fast. “DON’T YOU GUYS THINK THIS ISN’T THE TIME? CAN’T YOU HEAR THE SIRENS?” there wasn’t a snowballs chance in hell he was going to open the door again. He believed everyone has the right to do things in private, but there’s a time and a place for everything.  
  
“OF COURSE WE CAN HER’ THEM DAMN SIRENS?! DON’T YER’ THINK WE’RE EGNORIN’ THEM?” Chatter’s voice shouted back, loud and extremely annoyed. Being walked in on when having a moment with his wife that didn’t come around often was enough to piss anyone off.  
  
“Cut it out the two of you.” Irene’s voice interjected between the two. “Unfortunately there’s never going to be an appropriate time, you take what you can get, Jethro put on some bloody trousers, we’ve got to defend the oil rig!”  
  
Baz thumped his foot rapidly while he waited for the two love birds to ready themselves before stepping out of the room. He handed Chatter a pistol, and the engineer snatched it while grumbling. Irene shook her head.  
  
“Don’t mind him Slugger, sometimes shit happens.” Irene gave him a weak smile.  
  
“Oh I know believe me. There were a few things I was looking forward to while we had peace and quiet, unfortunately that isn’t going to be happening today.” He didn’t look too happy, but unless you had known him for a long time, it was hidden well under a mask of seriousness that would have gone unnoticed. “We’ve got to get the two of you up the top of the rig where Addie has left her sentries, you guys are better attacking from up there picking them off at long range, I’ve got Lee fetching the soldiers and Addie’s trying to round up anyone who can still stand after all that drinking they’ve been doing, and I fear it will not be very many.”  
  
“Right well while that’s all being sorted, I’m supposing you’re going to be holding a distraction while we climb into our positions?”  
  
“I really didn’t think of that but I suppose so. If I run into Yunai, Kev or that nutty spy of yours we might be able to keep them back long enough before they break the first lines.” He whipped off a salute before darting off.  
  
“I really hoped that they’d be done for the day. Oh well, there’s no rest for the wicked.” Irene loaded her rifle and headed for the base exits towards the rig.  
  
Lee met both soldiers running along the base’s halls. They’d both heard the alarms and were already armed and ready for battle.  
  
“They’re coming in straight for the rig! We’ve got to hold them back for as long as we can!  
  
Tilden’s shot gun clicked as it was loaded. “Right then lad, it’s time to defend what’s rightfully ours.” The old soldier grinned with malice. “Just the right weather for it too, nothing saps the fighting spirit better than a thunderstorm!” He took off his helm and handed it to Kingston. “You’re going to need that more than me son, fighting with the rain on my head helps me to think!” he ran on ahead of them.  
  
Lee grabbed Laurance’s hat off Kingston and smiled. “I’ll look after this shall I? I could use a bit of good luck this time around! You can have it back when it’s all over.”  
  
Kingston nodded and rammed the soldier’s stash on his head. “RIGHT!” he shouted. “Let’s send these commies back to where they came from!” he slapped Lee hard on the back. “We’ll show these maggots a fight they’ll never forget!”  
  
Baz ran out into the storm, rain pelting down hard from the heavens turning everything on the ground into a slippery muddy sludge. He spotted Yunai and Kevin already behind cover ducking out to take pot shots at the advancing enemy and slid into their cover.  
  
“My maympf Memmph Mit Maisfphs!” Yunai’s muffled frustration growled under the pyro’s mask. “Muffinph Muffkin Morfhs!” Yunai was wrestling with a shotgun, all the oil and other flammables the pyro carried around had leaked onto it and caused most of the weapon to rust. The water getting into the pyro’s main pack for the flamethrower wasn’t much of a help either, and they were highly outnumbered so melee was currently out of the option. Yunai swore. “MUFK!”  
  
“Use this.” Baz handed Yunai his force- a – nature. Sure, it wasn’t as good as the pyro’s shot gun but it wasn’t that far from it. He pulled out his pistol from his belt, reached over the rock they used for cover and fired a whole clip in the direction of the oncoming reds.  
  
Yunai remembered the gun from the introduction back at 2fort, and raised it to aim.  
  
KERBANG - BANG!  
  
Two shots fired out with such force the pyro was thrown back down heavily into the mud. Yunai had forgotten all about the knockback that it had and was scrabbling around in the muck to find the gun to attempt to fire another round.  
  
A loud scream pierced the air, a battle cry from the enemy. A Red scout leapt over the rockface where they were hiding, only to be filled full of holes. If the bullets from three guns hadn’t killed the young attacker, the landing his body made in the mud between the three Blu’s would have. There was a sicking snap on impact as the young man’s head connected with the ground, and all three reeled back when they heard it. Spinal injuries where a horrible way to die.  
  
It was also a sign that the enemy where too close. Wordlessly Baz swapped his pistol with Kevin for the other scouts bat, Yunai handing Kevin the FaN to give the scout extra ammo and gripping the axe the pyro had out of its hold, giving it a few swings. “Mrym Mrrrmy Memfph Mummr Marfh.”  
  
“Alright, Kev give us as much cover as you can, we’re going in!” Baz nodded towards Yunai, the pyro gripping the axe tighter, rain pouring off the protective suit like water on a duck’s back. Kevin saluted and stood up, aiming both pistols in front of him, firing off rounds and moving out from the cover, Yunai and Baz charging forward, sliding forward in the mud and sludge using the other scout’s random shooting to push themselves into the enemy, the pyro’s axe hacking into flesh, tearing tendons and muscle, the scout’s double bat wielding moving like a swift blur knocking the enemy to the ground, making it easier for Yunai to land the final deathstrike.  
  
“Hurry Up Jethro! They can’t hold a distraction for much longer! They’re out numbered down there!” Irene shouted at her husband, hauling him up the ladder onto the platform with Adelaide’s inactive sentry.  
  
“Damn Irene! Yer’ know I’m not good at climbin’!” He grunted. Irene wasn’t listening to him though; she was already aiming her rifle and looking down the scope.  
  
SKUPLUT!  
  
A soldier that was bearing down behind Kevin went down in a heap. The scout jumped as mud from the corpse sploshed up his legs catching the teenager by surprise.  
  
“Gotchya you fucking wanker.” Irene muttered, reloading and re-aiming.   
  
Chatter hit the sentry with a wrench he yanked out of his tool belt and realised the mechanism had stuck in the rain. “Come on yer’ hunk er’ junk!” he shouted, belting it with another hard wack. The gun chugged into life; the rocket launcher sprang up, machine gun barrels clunked into place and bullet chains unravelled. It was an impressive sight if you hadn’t ever seen something twice the height of the average man that was built to kill roar into being. Chatter picked up the manual over ride controls, flipped the switches for the shields to go up and took aim towards the incoming troops. “FIRE IN THER’ HOLE!” he shouted, slamming his hand down on the firing button, unleashing the rapid fire of bullets from the machine guns that where built in and launching a few of the rockets in a steam of smoke that was quickly damped out by the weather, but it wouldn’t affect their final trajectory.  
  
KABOOM! KRRRACKBOOM!  
  
Missiles hit rocks walls around them, but that didn’t stop the two Blu melee defenders. If their weapons where swords, they would have been leaving a large trail of severed heads in their wake, although Yunai’s axe was coming pretty close to it, just not as neatly. The pyro tore the axe out of a fallen red demoman, swung it around overhead and straight into the chest of a soldier.  
  
KRRACKBOOOM!  
  
A large chunk of rock tumbled down from an explosion further up above, and Yunai was shoved out of the way. A hand roughly pulled the Pyro out of the mud and back onto its feet.  
  
“Watch yourself soldier, this is a hostile battlefield! Be more alert!” Tilden’s voice cut through the hissing downpour.  
  
“Meph murh!” the pyro saluted, slipping and then falling into line behind the old soldier who fired his shotgun into the back of an uncloaking spy that had vaporised in front of them unawares his protection was less than invisible in the storm. The slight halo of rain bouncing off the cloak was a dead giveaway to the enemy’s location.  
  
Kingston stormed past, Firing rockets inches from the enemy, pushing them back. Baz fell in behind the younger man, the whirring of bats becoming a protection from outside attackers coming for the soldier, plus giving the scout a small break, the moving around in the slush was energy draining just to stand upright, let alone ducking and weaving to avoid enemy blows. The only ones stupid enough to come close to a rocket blasting soldiers would be spies, and they were easy to spot in the hail.  
  
Thunder crackled across the blackened smoke-filled skies, and more reds that have come in from another mineshaft entrance began to charge towards the Blu defenders on the ground. Adelaide who had gone to try and rustle up anyone who as still sober - or at least not drunk enough to blow their own arms off - tried to cut them off, throwing down a mini sentry down behind some light cover and charging forward, widow maker firing round after round, With the added help from Damien who while not sober enough to aim rifle with precision, was still able to rip off a few furious rounds with his small semi-automatic. It was enough to catch the new attacker’s attention and change their line of pursuit, the sniper and engineer moving back around the rocks till they were out of sight. The reds continued to pursue, only to be greeted by an Uber-charged Moriz and Von who mowed them down in seconds. All that raw power and invincibility was like a god styled impenetrable shield that made running right into them similar to running headlong into a mincing machine.  
  
Heinemann, the gravel pit’s medic had decided that this was his great opportunity to try his new experimental medi-gun; the Kritzkrieg. He had tested it a few times on the resident pigeons and rats with much success, and was now looking for his first human geniea pig. The was a slight side effect in both of those creatures when he used it upon them, after the effects wore off, the pigeons tended to explode, and the rats showed signs of permanent aggression afterwards, but he was certain a human being would be ok…if worse came to worse, he was prepared and heavily armed with tranquilizers. His eyes scanned the battle field hoping to find a soldier, or at least a demoman to try it on.  
  
“MEDIC!”  
  
His head jerked in the direction the call had come from. Kevin, his own team’s scout was under attack. He ran towards the voice, hoping he was going to get there in time. From the distance he could see the young man fighting off a man in a suit and not very well. Kevin was going to be taken down long before the medic was going to get there.  
  
KERSPOLCHT!   
  
Mud flung up infront of Heinemann, causing him to slip backwards into the sludge. Scrabbling to his feet he could make out a third person in the fray, hard to tell what team they were on due to the mud and the hail but judging by their actions, it was safe to say they’d also come to the scout’s aid.  
  
The red spy ducked and dodged the new attacker, only to be caught by a bat swing from under the chin and another knocking the man’s leg from under him.  
  
“KA-BONK!” Another swing whacked the spy right across the back of the head. “BONK!” the new fighter shouted as the spy crumpled, gripping his head and struggling to get up. “HEADS UP CHUCKLE NUTS!”  
  
KATHUNK!  
  
“IDIOTS! Don’t you know that we can see you cloaking in the fuckin’ rain?” Baz growled. He was hoping the spies on his own side where not so stupid. He turned back and lend over Kevin. “Are you alright?”  
  
Kevin was clutching his chest just under the collarbone. Blood was seeping through his clothes rapidly, the wet fabric absorbing just as much blood as it was water and spreading it further than the initial wound. Heinemann managed to slide down over to them and apply pressure to the injury, fumbling with his other hand in his medipack.   
  
“Here, let me help.” Baz took hold of the pressure bandage freeing up the doctor’s hands so he could pull out all his healing equipment and work a bit faster. The rain was slowing him down somewhat, but to a skilled man it was just another challenge to his profession. There was a scream of defiance a few feet away heading towards them, and Baz quickly scrabbled to his feet, gripping the two bats he had as if they were extensions for his fists and charging towards the enemy soldier that was now bearing down on them.  
  
“Hold onkto zis for one zecond.” Heinemann said hurriedly to Kevin, putting the scouts hand over the wound. “I vill not be long.” He stood, pulled out the barrel of the KritzKrieg and swung it in the direction of the other scout. “ZIS BETTER VORK ZIS TIME!” he shouted as he pulled hard on the leaver, sending a pure voltage beam charge towards the other man. Kevin’s eye opened wide as the beam or radiation surrounded his teammate, and the expression of Heinemann was of pure joy that he’s experiment was working so far.  
  
The enemy solider slipped backward, and then he grinned with malice after realising the medic hadn’t unleashed an Uber-charge. He still had full opportunity to take the kid down and charged headlong into the scout.  
  
THWACK!  
  
The first bat flung around and bashed the soldier in his side, sending him off balance. The charge was flowing into the scout’s body now a bluish aura was now surrounding the man as he took another swing.  
  
KURUNK!   
  
The second bat caught the soldier across the other shoulder sending him stumbling the other direction. The man raised his gun to fire.  
  
KLTHUNK! KERBANG!  
  
The first bat hit the gun, spinning it out of the soldier’s grasp, but the enemy was still able to manage to pull off a shot which had hit the scout, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. The second bat came around and…  
  
CRACK!  
  
The soldier landed in a heap in the mud, blood from a skull fracture to the frontal lobe killing him instantly. Heinemann shut off the KritzKrieg, impressed that his first official human test was a success. In the rain there was still a faint crackling of a glow around his target, but it seemed to be wearing off. He turned to re-attend his patient.  
  
Baz had dropped both bats into the slop after the effect of sudden strength left him as fast as it had entered. He blinked. He decided that he must have been imagining the whole thing. There’s not such things as sudden human strength like that, and certainly no such thing as a medic ever Uber-charging a scout. He kicked the body that was in the mud just to be sure. The body rolled revealing a caved in skull fracture that was neat and precise.  
  
“That’s weird.” Baz remarked and then shrugged. There’s something’s that happen on the battlefield you can’t explain, and for him this just happens to become one of those. Wasn’t there a bullet fired? He patted himself all over till he found a bullet hole through the brim of the Soft cap. That was awfully close.  
  
Thunder rolled. Lighting flickered more frequently and more violently closer to the rig. Chatter and Irene had both made use of the sentry for cover as the wind now whipped and pelted hailstones into them at high speeds.  
  
“WELP THIS IS A FIIINE THAR PICKLE WE’RE IN ‘ERE!”  
  
“AW SHUT UP.” Irene snapped.  She was not in the mood to put up with her husband’s sarcasm.   
  
“Yer’ know, this reminds me of our weddin’ night…”  
  
“For pete’s sake Jethro!”  
  
“Thunder wasn’ ther’ only thin’ rumblin’ that – OW!” Chatter rubbed his ribs. Irene knew how to jab the end of the rifle in places where it was going to hurt. Another flash flickered through the blackened sky.  
  
“That one was too close! We have to get off the rig!” Irene stood up and pulled Chatter to his feet.  
  
Too late. The next strike hit the rig, causing sparks to fly along the steel frame of the platform and cables to sever and start a fire further along the platform, throwing both Chatter and Irene back down and slide both of them towards the platform edge. Chatter flung and arm out and gripped the railing and grabbed Irene with his other free hand as she slid past, her legs dangling inches from the edge.  
  
“Don’t Yer DARE let go!” Chatter growled, trying to haul Irene back up towards him and the railing. Another stroke of lighting struck the rig and the whole platform gave way, landing both of them with a thud on the level below. The boards creaked, the rain and old age hadn’t been kind to the structure, and it gave way under Chatter’s extra weight, causing the engineer to plummet again. The rigging wobbled and shook, detaching itself from the Oil tower, tiling in the wild wind.  
  
Down below, the explosion and the noise of the collapsing rig was not unnoticed. The heads of both the Blu and Red teams looked up, some of the Red’s fleeing, a few of them breaking away from combat to go for the oil refinery tower with the few Blu’s tailing behind them.  
  
“WHOLY SHIT!” Damien shouted as he spun around after a demoman who had broken away from him. “OH NO YOU DON’T YOU FUCKIN’ DINGO’S DONGER!”  
  
Adelaide fired into a red scout and as the boy crumpled to the ground she also turned after the demoman to pursue, only to get a few feet behind Damien in his long legged gated run before being shot at. The sniper slid to a holt as his Conrad collapsed behind him face first into the mud, enemy temporally forgotten. The demoman hadn’t got far before Xeromus uncloaked and slashed his knife across the man’s face, and bore it deep into the man’s chest. It was a messy kill, but the spy was pressed for time. The rain was impossible to stay hidden in and close combat with short weapons was not easy to do in the hail.  
  
Kingston also looked up at the tower, and pointed, “WE’VE GOT TO FALL BACK AND DEFEND!” he yelled. Lee sprang passed him, ducked a wild swing from an enemy sniper, who fell victim to a skull shattering punch from the solider coming from the other way.  
  
“Thanks, I owe ya one!”  
  
Kingston just flicked a smile and it vanished as quickly as it had arrived. They had to fall back and defend the base. Both of them started running, weaving infront of and around rock walls until they were blocked off by two enemy heavies. Lee attempted to dodge past, only to be scooped up and hefted over the shoulder of one of them.  
  
“HEY! LET GO OF ME YOU FAT HEADED LARD ARSE!” she punched her fists into the man’s back, to no advail. She tried to bite the man and the heavy just laughed.  
  
“OI! DROP THE SCOUT YOU MAGGOT!” Kingston growled, taking a swing for him and missing, only to see nothing but blackness from a second oncoming punch from the second large man. The second heavy scooped up the young man and threw him over his shoulder also, following the other big man with the yelling and shouting scout in retreat.  
  
“PUT ME DOWN AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN YOU BALD SMELLY TUBBY-BUTT! MAYBE FIGHTING ME WILL MAKE YOU LOSE SOME WEIGHT, FATSO!”  
  
“Jethro!?” Irene called out. “Are you alright?” she didn’t wait for an answer, the platform creaked and swayed, forcing her to scramble up to grab onto something that wasn’t moving as the board beneath her also started to give away. She gripped onto the metal rail as the platform tore out from under her feet, leaving her dangling in the air. Her hands where slipping, and despite her best efforts to get a good grip, the water on the slick metal slid her fingers off it, the sniper couldn’t hold on.  
  
Baz was already thudding along the wet gravel, closing in on the rig, Heinemann with his charge ready close behind, with Kevin limping in an awkward leg-dragging stumble bringing up the rear. A heavy- medic pair of the enemy was already gaining ground ahead of them, the enemy uber-charge fizzing out and the heavy stopping his minigun rotation so he could run. The sound of the timber falling and shattering up ahead was like smashing a hammer against lead in the back of Baz’s mind, people he cared a lot about where on that rig, anger, fear and panic boiling in his blood as the gap between him and the enemy closed. Kevin was already drawing the two pistols and opening fire at the enemy medic, Baz, jinked and strifed around the heavy, forcing the man to ditch his minigun and raise his fists to tackle the taller, slender fighter. How’d it go? Memory flicked a card, the mental image of Ivan the old turtle fort heavy taking the same fighting stance and shouting at him to attack him form any angle to bring him down. The red heavy swung both arms like a sledge hammer, missing the scout as he bent backwards to avoid the blow. Time to lay all the cards down on the table, what have I got that he hasn’t? Baz’s brain was on overdrive. The enemy swung two punches, both missing the scout as he ducked and dodged them.  AH… I know..  
  
Heinemann stood back enough of a distance so he could get both scouts in his Kritz’s range. “HAHAHA… AH HAHAHAHAHA!” he began to lose composure as he flipped the switch for the Uber charge. Power surged through the contraption in the medic’s arms, humming and vibrating as it unleashed a raw shot of energy towards his two targets.  
  
Raw energy pumped through Kevin’s already battered and bruised frame as he raised the pistols again to fire. It was like he had no control over his actions, as if the gun itself was demanding to be fired. He had a sudden overpowering need to satisfy the primal instinct to eliminate the opposition. The enemy medic didn’t even have time to turn around before the scout was already upon him, filling two full clips into the chest of them man. It was if the world had slowed down for a few seconds as the bullets pounded into the enemies’ flesh and sped up again as he made physical impact with the ground. Kevin paused, the energy surge was starting to eat at him and he knew that if he obeyed his body would cry foul and file thousands of complains later that he knew he couldn’t deliver the I.O.U’s to.  
  
Blood boiled. The surge was looking for an outlet, a little trail of rage it could feed off and latch onto. The creature stirred.   
  
The enemy heavy stumbled back, and then charged forward swinging all his huge bulk into his punches.  
  
WHOOMPH! The left arm flew over the scout.  
  
 FWOPPMH! The other fist followed. The sound of the large man’s forceful blows where making sounds in the air and the rain as they travelled with such ferocious speed. The smaller man still managed to avoid the swing. The large man growled and a snarl rippled across his features as he threw all his body weight into his next few lunges.  
  
“GRRRAGH!” WHOOMPH!  
  
“GAH! GET OUT OF MY FREAKIN’ WAY YOU OVERSIZED BILLARD BALL!” Baz snarled back, anger getting unhinged. The charge had also affected him, but not the same way as before. It found a weapon that it could use, and the young man’s emotions were escaping and becoming a force of their own. Even the Russian could feel it radiating from the smaller man. "YOU COULDN'T HIT SHIT, YA LARD-ARMED BASTARD!"*  
  
From where he stood, Heinemann could see something was wrong. It was the aggressive killer rats all over again. He banged on the Kritz Kreig to try and get the charge to stop before the scout exploded like the pigeons he tested it on. In the end he swung it against a nearby bolder and smashed it just so the charge surged out. He looked up to see the enemy heavy down in the mud and the scout that was under the charge covered in blood, all the way up his arms. In the brief seconds of the extra power surge the thinner man had mutilated the larger man with his bare hands in a fierce and sudden rage. It wasn’t a human standing there anymore, it was a creature. And it was fixedly looking hungrily at Kevin.  
  
"Wartet, jemand muss diesen Scout aufhalten!"** Heinemann shouted just as the emotionally fuelled man charged straight for Kevin, who was barely standing upright since the charge had been cut off, the extra power in his body the only reason he’d been able to stand upright for so long. "Haltet ihn gut fest, aber ohne, ich wiederhole, ohne ihm die Knochen zu brechen! Er ist nicht bei Sinnen!"† He yelled just as the creature made a lunge for the injured young man.  
  
“NOT SO FAST SKINNY MAN!” Roared a voice as a large arm swooped in and grabbed the crazed Blu team member from mid attack, the feral man’s arm swiping inches from Kevin’s frightened face. Moriz’s other arm curled around and held onto the struggling man in an almost death grip – like embrace. The big Russian held tight as the body in his arms struggled to break free, “What is wrong? Why are you not you?” his voice boomed with concern.  
  
Heinemann rushed over to assess the damage and to stop Kevin from fainting at almost being mauled to death. “Ve need to contain him till I can fix ve problem! How long can you hold Vim for?”   
  
Moriz glanced around and spotted and empty create nearby. He made haste over to it with the frenzied scout kicking and clawing at him to break loose, and then stuffed him into the wooden box, slamming down the lid heavily and then sitting ontop of it.  
  
“Problem solved.” He smiled.  
  
Heinemann patted about himself and his pockets till he found his large syringe filled with his back up antidote, then poked it through a small gap with a fierce jab hitting flesh first go, getting winces out of Moriz and Kevin in the process. “Zer we go…. Now Zat should vear off in a few hours.”  
  
“Arth youth shurth?” Kevin hesitated, still fixated on the box. “Causth I’s Kindas wantsh my old sergeant backish if itfh poshible.” He leant down by the crate and steadied himself. “Mishter Casey, if ya stillfh there everythingsh ish ok… at leasth I hopfh so…” he mumbled the last of the sentence, unsure if the other scout would have understood it in his mental state in any case.  
  
Von was chasing behind Sean, both men halting when they reached the wreckage of the tower.  
“Ve need to find zem dead or alive, preferable alive zo I do not have to do extra papervork!” he barked at the Scotsman.  
  
“ACK! Ya bloody whine worse than a Pommy Nance!” Sean grumbled, lifting his way through the debris.  
  
 Von kicked a few stray bits of timber, not wanting to do any real heavy lifting himself, hoping the other man would do all the work for him.“Vell look at it zis vay, If Ve don’t find zem alive, I vill blame it all on you, and zen ve vill see how long you vill live for vonce Basil finds out you let zem die. I assure you, you vill met a very unpleasant end…and zis is NOT an idle threat.” He gave Sean a rather stony smile that kindly reminds drowning men at sea that they are next on the lunch menu. The Demoman began to move a lot faster, he didn’t forget about the foolishness of his actions during training, and the sharp needles the medic had on him full of weird experimental drug cocktails he injected him with as punishment. He didn’t want to know what the scout would do to him, and if the squad medic was creepy enough, the mental image of everything else just about shut down at this point.  
  
There was a sound of tin being thrown away to the right of them and the rain thundered on the iron. “Don’t just stand there gawking at me you slack jawed yokels, give us a hand! You to you long haired girly-pants!” Tilden growled. He had found Chatter burred beneath some of the timber, and was rushing to get the man free. The demoman made his way over to help the old soldier remove a broken support beam. Von sighed and adjusted his gloves. He didn’t like to get his hands dirty.  
  
“OI! UP HERE! CAN ONE OF YOU KANGAROO CARCASSES GET ME DOWN FROM HERE?”  
Von looked up and saw Irene hanging off a high beam. Her jacket had been caught on the fall down and she had wedged her foot into some of the bracken to stop herself from dropping further once the material in the jacket gave away.  
  
“I zink ve need to get a ladder for zer lady.” Von’s expression soured as he spoke. In his experience ladies did not call gentlemen ‘Carcasses.’  
  
  
 _*Thankyou to Chatter himself for the insult!_  
 _** Thankyou to both Shadeduellist and RedheadSadako for the German translation roughly it means, 'Wait, someone grab a hold of that Scout!’ and † 'Don't you dare put a scratch on him or you'll be sorry!_


	15. Loss

The enemy had retreated, the Blu’s started picking up pieces of what was left of themselves and dragging them back to their base. They were outnumbered to start, but now it was clear they suffered a few casualties. Sean and Tilden where carrying in Irene and Chatter, Chatter in a worse state than he’d ever been in his whole time in service, Damien had Adelaide slung over his shoulders, his face was very dark and grim, he couldn’t even look his own squad members in the eyes. Von was offering whatever aid he could to the wounded, but once he saw the female engineer, he barked orders to have her sent straight to the medic bay so he could operate immediately. The sniper sat down and hung his head, hat in his hands and swore.  Yunai and Frances made their way in next, dragging the mangled corps of Xeromus between them, the spy falling victim to a stray demoman grenade; a tragic end to years of infiltration, misinformation and undermining the Red’s from the inside. Even if the man was no longer breathing. Being able to bring back his body so they could send it back home to his loved ones was better than leaving a loose end out there on the field. It was a sign of respect they all felt it, to the fallen and their families, but no matter how many people you kill in the field of battle, seeing one of your own missing half their body and everything else was still very hard to take and even harder not to be sick at the sight of it.  
  
Moriz waded in carrying a large crate followed by Heinemann and Kevin bringing up the rear. The heavy dropped the wooden box down gently then sat on top of it.  
  
“Yoush surth heth got enough air in there?” Kevin asked for possibly the hundredth time.  
  
“Yes Kevin, ze has enough air in there.”  
  
“Onlfh he stopftd trying to geth outfh ofh the crate a few miuntueth ago.” Kevin sounded worried.  
  
Damien now looked up. “You block-heads didn’t bring back a prisoner did ya?”  
  
“Vell, no.. not exactly. Ze’s vun of ours.” The medic frowned. “Malfuntion uber. But don’t vorry, ve vill fix…or er… it’s fix alvedy in a vay, ve vill let zem out soon.”  
  
Now all heads turned to the German. They all varied in expression from worried to downright frustrated that the man didn’t give them any real sort of explanation to go on. Heinemann sighed. “Look, just don’t opven ze box till I zay zo ok?” he looked around. “Vhere iz ze shorter Scout and ze Young Zoldier? Ze do not seem to be here?”  
  
Tilden looked crestfallen. “They were captured. I don’t know what those reds are up to, but it cannot be anything good.”  
  
“Yer know, speak’n of which, has anyone seen Baz?” Chatter spoke up from his seat leaning against his wife, both of them where using each other as support so the other wouldn’t fall over.  
  
Kevin’s eyes flicked to the crate, while Heinemann and Moriz exchanged non-committal glances. That told Chatter pretty much all he needed to know.  
  
“Heinemann, do you mind helping Von with Addie?” Irene said carefully, not taking her eyes off the crate. The medic’s expression looked a little confused but he did as Irene asked, knowing that when she normally spoke with that tone, she was doing so for the person’s own good. When he had left them, Irene asked kindly, “Moriz, was it? Do you mind moving off the box and opening the lid when I count to three please?” she sat up straighter and motioned for Tilden to get ready. “One… Two… THREE!”  
  
“WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON HIM I’M GONNA PUNCH HIM SO HARD HIS FACE WILL COME OUT OF HIS ARSE!”  
  
Von looked at the other medic as he stepped foot into the meidi-bay as the vicious yell filled the air of the base, then looked back to the task at hand. Brain surgery in this dingy place was practically impossible and wasn’t going too well. “At least he’z fine… But you vill not be if ze don’t do our jobz.”  
  
After eight gruelling hours…. Things took a turn for the worst. Von sighed and hung his head. “Vell I don’t know vhat else ve can do.”  
  
Heinemann tried to assure the other medic. “I will break it to him.”  
  
“No, I vill, it vill not be zomethink he vill believe from anyone else.” Von rubbed his eyes under his glasses. He was not looking forward to breaking the bad news to the scout, but it had to be done one way or another.  
  
Baz was waiting right outside the door of the medic bay as Von stepped out. There was a small slim expression of hope in the features of the young man’s face. Smeared still with blood, sweat and dirt, it was clear he was worried and hadn’t bothered to right himself after the battle until what he nightmare he was thinking of was put out of his mind. The medic’s heart sank, breaking bad news was not something he enjoyed but a necessity of his profession.  
  
The scout caught his hesitation and his sudden interest in becoming a professional floor-to-ceiling inspector and could feel his insides tearing apart. The worst fears where true. Before Von could answer, Baz spoke quietly and with the greatest of care.  
  
“Can I see her?”  
  
Von finally looked at the young man, nodded and let him through. “I am zorry. Ve tried everything, but a bullet direct to ze brain in zer middle of zer cerebral artery vhen ve do not have ze tools to remove it, is zomethink I cannot cure.”  
“I understand.” Baz murmured, although in truth he hadn’t understood a damn word, but the sentence ‘bullet to the brain’ did enough explaining for him. The Gravel pit medic Heinemann didn’t look too happy with the outcome either. The man had been sharing the base with the engineer for a year now and had treated her like she was his own daughter, like the one he lost in a German camp during the war.  
  
Both men stood back to give the scout some room, Heinemann out of sheer respect and Von for the knowledge that Baz has a history of flying off the handle over emotional and personal matters.   
  
Baz leaned over the body of his loved one lying there on the medic bed, evidence the medic’s furious work over the last few hours had been wasted but the struggle to keep her alive was all there. He brushed some of the red curls out of her now closed eyes and ran his hand down her cheek. He moved in closer and seemed to hold her for a while. Von was surprised when the young man started singing, quiet and whispered, all full of pure emotion.

  
 _“We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when_  
 _But I know we'll meet again some sunny day_  
 _Keep smiling through, just like you always do_  
 _Till the blue skies chase the dark clouds far away_  
 _Now, won't you please say "Hello" to the folks that I know_  
 _Tell them it won't be long_  
 _'cause they'd be happy to know that when you saw me go_  
 _I was singing this song_  
 _We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know wh_ en  
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.”*  
  
The last few parts where drowned out by sobs and silent tears, and both medic’s shifted on their feet, the moment making them feel very uncomfortable being in the room and Von was feeling awkward due to the fact most of the time he was around the man was when he was duly frustrated or over excited and had never seen him so fragile before.  
  
“I promise to love you forever Adelaide…and I promise to get those bastards.” Baz kissed her forehead before straightening up. He didn’t look at the medics and he turned and headed out. He had something very important to do now, lives where depending on them for a rescue and there was no way the scout was going to lose another life that was not his own. He stormed through the doors and bumped right into Chatter, who had been worried about him since they had recovered the missing team members and realised that two of their own had been taken captives by the enemy. Irene had told him to leave Baz alone for a few hours until the man was willing to talk to them about his loss, but Chatter knew that the scout would not be sitting idle when there were people still out there.  
  
“Is everything-” the engineer started to say, but was brushed aside by the scout. Chatter watched him head for the small makeshift war room they had set up and followed, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder turning him around as Baz was reaching for a weapon. “I asked yer a ques- where’d yer think yer’ goin’?” Chatter’s voice changed from concerned to slightly unsettled in a heartbeat.  
  
“We still have two out there. Dead or alive we have to bring them back.”  
  
“An’ what ‘er yer’ going to do? Waltz in there and open fire? Yer’ think that’d get them out alive, assuming they still are?” Chatter growled, hoping Baz would listen to his tone of voice. “we need a plan befor’ we go marchin’ in there!”  
  
Baz just snapped. “We can’t sit around here until we get a plan! The first 24 hours is critical! The enemy could be torturing them to get information right about now that they don’t have! Are we just going to wait until we can recover their corpses and then wipe their blood off our hands sayin’ there was nothing we could do?” The scout viciously poked the engineer in the chest, pushing the man back as he did so, then grabbed him by the shirt collar and growled back, “This isn’t about the stupid deal with the administrator anymore, this is about people’s lives, and ones I made a pack with to protect and never leave behind! I OWE THEM TO TRY TO RESCUE THEM!” his voice raised into a loud snarl and now, the remains of those who were on the Gravel pit team and his own started to come into the room due to the shouting to find out what was going on.  
  
“And if you don’t want to help me do it, then THAT’S FINE!” Baz poked the engineer again, pushing him against a wall. At this point, Tilden had grabbed a hold of Baz and pulled him away from the engineer in case he did something he’d regret and Irene came to the aid of her husband.   
  
Irene hissed in Chatter’s ear, “What in the hell are you playing at Jethro?”  
  
“I’m tryin’ to stop an idiot going out there and get himself killed, that’s what I’m tryin’ ter’ do!” Chatter hissed back at his wife.  
  
“And just what do you think you’re trying to achieve? He’s not a kid anymore! You can’t control his life forever, and neither can I!”  
  
Chatter just stared at his wife blankly. She was right, he wasn’t a kid anymore, but she was wrong about the controlling part. Chatter remembered then what his rank was. He nudged Irene aside and puffed himself out before he dealt his orders. “STAND DOWN SERGENT! YER’ ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED FER’ THIS OPERATION! YER’ ARE TO REMANIN IN YER’ QUARTERS TILL FURTHER INSTRUCTION! DO A MAKE MER’SELF CLEAR!”  
  
The whole room went silent. Baz stopped trying to struggle out of the old soldier’s grip.  
  
“THAT WAS AN ORDER SERGENT!” Chatter snapped. “DIDN’T I MAKE MER’SELF CLEAR?”  
  
Baz looked shocked and mutually angry, but was hiding it under a mask of slight terror. “As crystal, Captain.” He shouldered Tilden off and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him and pulling it off its already dilapidated hinges.  
  
Irene slapped her husband across the back of the head. “YOU UTTER BLOCK HEAD! YOU’RE LUCKY HE DIDN’T WALLOP YOU!” She snarled. “Is that what you wanted? You wanted to lose him as a friend forever?” she lowered her hand. “You expect too much from him at times Jethro, and place a lot on his shoulders on how he should behave. You cannot expect anyone to think and act rationally after the love of their life has been killed!” She poked him hard in the chest where the scout had done before, “If it was me who died out there you would have done the same thing! I know you Jethro Saberhagin, and you can’t tell me you wouldn’t as I know fine well how you bloody react when either me or Basil gets a scratch!”  
  
“It had to be done Irene, we both know it.”  
  
If Chatter only knew how much his concern for the scout and the sniper’s welfare over the years had influenced the scout’s behaviour, he may have seen this reaction coming.  
  
Baz punched his fist through the wall of the makeshift sleeping quarters the gravel pit team has given them while they were stationed there. The splintered wood stung his hand, but he didn’t care. Rage and just about any other uncontrollable emotion was taking over and he wasn’t dealing with it. He pounded his fists against the wall a few more times until he leaned against it in a heap and slid down to the floor, a mess of man with a broken heart. Fumbling with his pockets, he pulled out something small and silvery and ran it between his fingers. Was there nothing he could do? He had to do something, he couldn’t let the missing recruits die while awaiting rescue.  
  
There was an unnatural noise heard in the room. Pocketing the ring, Baz whipped the pistol out from his belt and spun around, the end of the pistol stopping inches from a surprised spies face. Frances, the Gravel pit’s resident spy automatically raised his hands to show he was unarmed. Unlike Xermous, Frances wasn’t a hard person to get along with, he was pretty jovial and went out of his way to try and be on the good side of everybody. Baz lowered the weapon.  
  
Frances looked relieved not to have the pistol aimed at him anymore. He decided it was safe to speak. “I overheard the fracas and thought that I might be able to help you. I know what it’s like to lose teammates to the enemy and I do not like to see others go through the same.” The spy ran his hand through a mess of deep brown locks. Frances refused to wear a mask, he thought it messed up his amazing hair style, although his colleges would be to differ and preferred he hid his face. He wasn’t an ugly man as such, but very narcissistic for a spy. “Xermous mentioned something about you messing around with a dead ringer and laughing about it, and it gave me an idea.”  
  
“How so?” Baz ventured.  
  
“Well you know that I have impeccable taste in acting and can spot talent a mile away,” Frances tapped his suit with his fingertips and stood tall. Before he was recruited he was an acting teacher for some of the biggest names on Broadway. He walked around the scout and hummed and ummed. “You know, I think we could sneak you in as a soldier, you certainly have the build for it, as you are too old to pass for a red team scout.”  
  
Baz frowned. “Thank you for reminding me.” He seethed.  
  
The spy wagged a finger. “tut tut. It’s not only for that reason. The other is because you are as foul mouthed as one….” The spy smiled and quickly continued after catching a glimpse of the scout’s expression which said ‘if you don’t get to the point soon I will bash your lights out.’ “But I know that you are very good at mimicry with your voice. That’s something that’s useful.”  
  
Baz sighed and folded his arms. “Look are you going to help me or not? ‘Cause if you’re going to just talk shit all night you can bloody join the rest of them. I don’t need any help that requires a tag along who’s a pain in the arse.”  
  
“Alright I have an idea, but it involves YOU having to do a bit of acting… If it’s possible for you to do any.”  
  
“FINE. What’s the plan?”  
  
Chatter and Irene where arguing, and in the end Chatter had been forced to apologise to Baz. The engineer grumbled and cursed because his wife was right. You can’t expect someone to be totally rational after having the person they love taken away from them. He stopped in front of the door for their makeshift quarters and hesitated. No last thing he wanted was the scout getting the better of him, the boy need to know his place…. Or he could just apologise and make his wife happy and they could…tough decision. He sighed.  
  
“Baz, look I’ma sorry, ‘bout that thar befor’ …” he started to say as he opened the door, pausing once he realised that the person he was meant to be talking to was missing from the room in question. “Dang it Baz!”  
  
  
  
  
  
 _*Song originally sung by Vera Lynn in the 1940’s. You might have heard it before as the closing song in the movie Dr. Strange love by Standley Kubrick. It’s a beautiful, if not a rather emotional song._


	16. Infiltration

Spotlights scoured the grounds and highlighted the few trees as is flickered on and off. There was a slight rustle in the brush, but the soldier on duty ignored it. Lots of things lived in the desert; there wasn’t anywhere for the enemy to hide so he continued polishing his shotgun. He didn’t see the knife glint and go for his throat till after it was slit, but then it was too late.  
  
The shadows made an unearthly sound.  
  
“That was brutal.”  
  
“And clean too, look, not a single drop of blood on anything but the blade.”  
  
“Ok so I have to admit, that’s pretty clever.” One of the figures bent down and checked the soldier’s pockets for any form of identification. It located the man’s dog tags and carefully removed them, then swapped his own for them and placing his into his pockets. They jingled.  He also picked up the shot gun. “Now, how you suppose we get the sniper on the roof there for his ones?” the figure indicated to a silhouette of another man who couldn’t see them in the shadows.  
  
“I thought I’d leave that for you, young man.”  
  
“Tch, figures. Hey one question; How long does a disguise work for when it’s used on an already dead man?”  
  
“Same length of time it would on a live one. Unless you’re killed, or in the case of the already deceased, the medic does a post mortem, and that could be hours, days, weeks.. Unless the doctor is REALLY clever… then it would be seconds.”  
  
“I have an idea. Make sure this body is well hidden, otherwise we’ll be discovered long before we get them out of there.”  
  
The figure that spoke stepped into the light and lit a smoke. He shouldered the gun under his arm and proceeded to patrol. He even started to whistle. The clumping of the heavy soldier’s boots thudded along the walkway until they paused, not too far from the feet of the sniper. The sniper looked at him and tipped his hat, the soldier grunted and saluted in such a way that would make any psychotic drill-Sergeant cry.  
  
“See anythin’ interesting mate?”  
  
The soldier grunted. “Same shit different smell. Fuck all happening but gest you wait, those scummy blue wiggling maggots will do ANYTHING to keep that rig. Why I want to tear them up and grid their bones into my coffee!”  
  
The sniper smiles. “Yeah base duty sucks. We miss out on all the fuckin’ fun.” He relaxed and looked back through his scope into the darkness.  
  
The shadows moved oddly and the man looked up from the scope and realised that the change was coming from behind him. He spun around, “What the Blaz-!”  
  
CLRUNK!  
  
The man fell at the soldier’s feet, his killer smiling under his soft cap. The soldier twirled the shovel and swung it playfully like you would a bat.  
  
“Maybe for you, sonny-jim. For me, the fun’s just starting.”  
  
The figure that was following the soldier from a good distance revealed itself; another red sniper stood beside him and puffed out a smoke ring. “Nice work. I know what she saw in you.”  
  
“Can-it will you? We’ve only have a few minutes. The shovel made a louder noise than I expected, we’re gonna be expecting company.” There was a pause. “And sound more ‘Australian’ would you? I thought you were an actor?! You sound awfully civilised for a man of the wild.”   
  
The sniper rolled his eyes and pulled out a disguise kit. “Ok, what do you want him to be… mate?”  
  
“Let’s go with a spy… and put your dog tags on him.”  
  
“Whatever for?”  
  
“It’ll make it more authentic.”  
  
“Since when did you get so, you know.. full of it?”  
  
“Oh you know, you meet one soldier, you kind of have met them all…. With the few exceptions…. That and when you’re a sergeant you have to be VERY good at yelling at other people to obey orders. Comes naturally I suppose after so long without doing so.”  
  
“I’ve only ever heard of a few scouts hitting that rank. Guess they give it to anybody these days huh?”  
  
“Actually, sarge, I still outrank you, so let’s not bring it up and get on with it. How long will it take?”  
  
“Two shakes of a lambs tail.” The soldier looked at the sniper. “It means in a minute ok?”  
  
“OI YOU THERE?! WHAT IS GOING ON UP THERE!?”  
  
“Now or never Frenchie.” The soldier whispered hurriedly and then leaned over the railing. “WHICH ONE OF YOU MAGGOTS SAID THAT?! COME OUT OR I’LL BLAST YOUR ARSE BACK TO THE ROCKS YOU CRAWLED OUT FROM!” the soldier turned and hissed at the Sniper who had finished putting the mask over the head of the unconscious man, “give me the rife and stand back.”  
  
“What do you plan to do?” the sniper looked at him wide-eyed as he hung his dog-tags on the man.  
  
“Stand back, I don’t want any blood splatter on you, we need to make it look like you killed him from a distance.”  
  
The sniper stood back and the soldier fired the rifle, a nice clean bullet shot through the brain and handed back the gun. “There, now it looks like YOU killed him.”  
  
There was a rush off feet which stopped at the stairs beneath them. There was a red Heavy and a red scout both standing there, neither of them too inclined to climb the stairs to be too close to them. The expression of the scout was one Baz had seen before and had had himself a few times in the past when faced with the current squad’s soldiers he was with. Time to show who was boss.  
“Is everything all right up there?” the lager man bellowed with cupped hands.  
  
“DOES EVERYTHING LOOK FINE TO YOU COMMIE?” Baz snapped back. He was determined to sound like the soldier from hell. “We just found and executed an enemy spy! Does that sound like all is well?!”  
  
The scout, a lot younger than Baz, opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the words.  
  
“Don’t look like me like a deer in a jeeps headlight’s son! You look like you’re attempting to catch flies! Pick up the slack and help us take this dead French-son-of-a-bitch down to the hold! No wait.” Baz paused for dramatic effect, which gave him small satisfaction at watching the scout cringe with a head full of thoughts about being issued an order and being forced to actually do any sort of work. “Better yet, have they got those prisoners to spill the workings of the enemy base yet?”   
  
The heavey and the scout shook their heads. “No sir, Miguel still can’t get a word out of them. They’re slippery little buggers I’ll give them that, sir!”  The scout quipped.  
  
“Then help Sheep-boy here carry his carcass down to the cells, maybe seeing a dead colleague might get those lips flappin’!” the scout looked at him blankly, so he added, “ That was an order, you gangly legged Nance!”  
  
The red scout saluted, “YES SAH!” and bolted up the stairs faster than a ferret after a rat and grabbed the dead man’s legs, while Frances posing as the red sniper grabbed his arms and both heaved with what strength they could muster. The body barely made it inches off the steel walkway. Just like any typical hard arsed soldier he’d met, he clicked his tongue, loudly and irritably so everyone could hear before grabbing the scout, forcing the young man to let go and the body too thud heavy onto the steel.  
  
“For crying out loud Son! Put yer back into it! Like this!” in one swoop the soldier grabbed the dead man and threw him over his shoulders with ease, or at least enough to look believably like it was easy, years of running gave Baz legs of steel, however he still grunted and flinched, he didn’t expect the man to be so heavy. He gave the scout a glare that could have melted lead. “What’er you staring at Nancy? Lead the way otherwise I’ll haul you over my knee and give you one hell of a lashing for being a weak little mamma’s boy!” the scout snapped to attention and darted down the stairs to lead the way without looking back to see if they would follow. It was clear that the soldier –while not the fear of god but the utter terror of something far worse to come- would tear him a new one if he hung around and didn’t obey direct orders. The heavy turned and followed slowly, leaving the sniper and the soldier to bring up the rear. There was something’s he wasn’t willing to stick his thick neck out for and the scout was amount them.  
  
“Nice Job.” Frances whispered as he walked ahead of Baz. “Your rather believable and bloody scary.”  
  
“Oh believe me, I’m nothing compared to Chatter and Irene when they found out I rigged the Christmas party a few years back… mind you that was hilarious from the stand point of seeing a room full of highly trained men run for the latrines in unison due to laxatives.”  He paused a second to shift the extra weight. “The court-martial was well worth every second of it.”  
  
Frances shook his head and pulled the slouch hat down to hide his smile. “She always told me you were a prankster. That’s why she loved you and never fell for me.”  
  
They followed the two real RED personnel in silence long enough to cross several corridors.  
  
“Surprised?”  
  
There was a grunt from under the grenadier’s softcap.  
  
“Shouldn’t be, she was very beautiful, anyman would…” he hesitated when he noticed his partner in crime stood dead in his tracks. Then the man moved forward again, reshouldering the dead body and soldering past him. “Ok wrong time to mention-CRACK!” Frances grabbed his nose, blood was rushing out of it at an alarming rate. Both the heavy and the scout turned around, the heavy in surprise, and the scout out of pure curiosity and then he spun on his heel realising that could have been him and relived that it wasn’t he marched forward.  
  
“This way gents!” he chimed, attempting to hide any fear in his tone.  
  
“That’s the last time you will ever give me lip you Kalgoorlie Cow-Herding Canadian!” Baz snapped, staying in character pretty well, despite the over whelming urge to drop the dead body and tear the Frenchman to pieces that would blow their cover. He marched past the heavy, the larger man waiting for the sniper and handing him a handkerchief for his broken nose. Trying to keep his mind off killing the frog till later, he tried focusing on where they were being lead. As a scout, he had raided his fair share of enemy bases, most of which were built exactly the same as his own side, which lead him to believe that the same building company was involved, smelled profit and worked for both at the same time. This base however was large and a network of narrow twisting corridors that lead off to other rooms. He began to wonder if this was the famous impenetrable ‘STEEL’ base he had heard about from various ramblings of other more experienced and almost dying and highly traumatised scouts. Up till now, he thought they were just hallucinating due to the tortured ways they had been kept alive as prisoners before they were rescued and was superstition. He’d outlived most of all of those young men now, the ones that had died horribly due to internal trauma, and some that survived where sent home to live in mental homes as there was no REAL normal home life for them to return to. Looking around though, it was clear he’d never see anything like it before.  
  
Something’s he could instantly recognise. The crates for example. He was vaguely aware after being stationed at the freight supply base that both sides got their weapons, upgrades and explosives from the same company. Being told that the supplier knew both the leaders of each side of the war and would remain neutral as long as both sides got the exact same special treatment wasn’t very comforting… something about being even handed with the previous owner’s sons… anyway Baz didn’t really listen and take it all in, after all he WAS nineteen, ignorant and believed anyone over the age of twenty five tended to waffle on like they knew everything. All he cared about at the time was how to stop other people filling his own backside full of lead.  
  
MANN CO. Wasn’t it owned by some wack-job Australian? He’d have to ask Damien or Irene that one, though Irene had been using Baz’s own customised weapons for years. They were more durable and didn’t set themselves alight for no reason for one thing. Whatever the case, this base was stacked high with them. They were either planning another assault and gearing themselves up for a large attack or they could be just leftovers from the last one. He didn’t like the look of it from either perspective. There was enough ammunition lying around to wipe out a thousand large platoons, despite the fact the Blu side in the war were relatively small; heck there was enough stuff here to blow up a whole country!  
  
The scout stopped infront of two large bolted doors, which the heavy lifted the heavy bolts across and out so they could walk inside. The room beyond was like any standard prison cell, there where iron bars laced own the corridors that lead to another little room at the end, which normally housed the prisoner interrogations. The door to that room was ajar and you could see sections of a chair with leather straps tied to it that the prisoner would be sitting in while they would go about their inquiries which involves tools like brass knuckles, knifes and other things that could shatter bones and leave you with all your fingers facing the wrong way.  
  
 Frances shuddered. It was impossible not to when you realised that for some unfortunate souls, this would be their last resting place.  
  
The heavy opened a cell door next to one that was occupied. “Put the Stiff in here. I go and come back an’ tell Miguel that you have brought a present. Wait here.” The large man slammed the door after Baz dumped the body into the small holding cell.   
  
The occupants in the one beside it watched carefully, and then Baz turned and spoke as he stood up and brushed himself off. “How’d yer like that, you smarmy jokers?! They won’t send anyone to save you now after this! And if they do, I’ll be ready for them!” he flashed an evil smile from under the soft cap, the shadow of the hat’s brim kept enough of his face hidden.  
  
The other prisoners shifted, one almost leapt up to shout in defiance when they were pulled back and had a hand slapped over their mouth. “Shhh. Do you WANT them to kill us?”  
  
Baz risked a glance at them. He knew only one person with that voice.  
  
The man that was holding the other one back was defiantly Kingston. He looked not only worn out from all the fighting beforehand, but trying very hard to keep his temper in check while Lee was failing around trying to break free to yell and shout and give the red team a piece of her mind. The only reason he knew it was lee was she was wearing Laurance’s hat.  
  
The heavy had left the three Red’s alone to go fetch his superior, and when the footsteps died away and the door was closed and the sound of it being securely bolted into place did anyone move. In truth, no one wants to take on a man who’s hundreds of times your weight in a fight, chances are you’re going to be on the receiving end, unless the man has a sudden heart attack, but lady luck was not good at favouring the brave.  
  
It was too easy. The scout was nervy and jumpy now he was left with the sniper and the soldier. All they had to do was make sure he didn’t scream. Baz walked in front of the skinny kid, and Frances innocently wandered around behind. The Scout was too busy watching the Baz waiting for the man to yell at him again so he wasn’t paying Frances any attention. Fatal mistake.  
  
The corpse of the young man folded onto the concrete floor. Frances spun the sniper arrow between his fingers like he would with a butterfly knife. “I’ve been itching to do that for the past hour or so since we met him.”   
  
Baz fleeced the young man’s corpse. He found a small set of lock picks and held them to the dim light. “Well what have we got here? Someone must have been really light fingered before we met him.” He threw the picks so Frances could catch them. “Your turn, sunshine. But make it quick as that heavy will not be gone for long.”  
  
“Is that really you?” Kingston had stood up and walked over to the bars.  
  
Baz tipped the soft cap. “Indeed, you don’t leave men behind, even if they are captured. Although I know I’m going to be dancing on a fire pit when we get back, but that can wait.” He smiled.  
  
“So you mean this is ‘off the books’ right?”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
The jingling of the lock picks ceased and the bar door swung open. Frances spun then on his fingers with a cocky expression on his face as finally some of his other boyhood skills where coming to the fore to be useful. Both Kingston and Lee filed out, both grateful to be out of there.  
  
“Now what?” Lee said to the world in general. “You got in, but how are you going to get us out?” the sentence hovered in the air all big and pink.  
  
“We can’t all go for the escape route at once, which will surely get us spotted.” The spy pointed out.  “That, and once they’ve realised the prisoners are missing we’re going to be in the thick of it.”  
  
“Hmm, your right.” Baz mulled it over. “We need to split up. Maybe we can take some of their operations out along the way? That would cripple them and make escaping easier in the chaos. I’m sure we passed the main operations room back the way we came somewhere.”  
  
“I’ll be happy to re-arrange a few faces.” Kingston cracked his knuckles.  
  
“No, it might not come to that, but we do need your strength though. How good are you at destroying things?”  
  
A grin graced the soldier’s square features. “Extremely good at it, sir.”  
  
“Capital, then you can come with me, as I’m intending to shut down all their main communication systems.” Frances purred. If there was one thing the spy loved to do, it was to shut the enemy down and limiting their ability to communicate.  
  
“Alright, then we’ll take the main ammunition dept. that we went through. There seems to be a lot on this base, and even tho we can’t get them all we should be able to make a dint in their major reserves for any more attacks on the Gravel pit for the time being.”  
“And how are you planning on doing that?” Frances gave the scout a lopsided look of one who didn’t believe in bullshit.  
  
Baz shrugged. “Oh you know, a little bit of hocus, a tiny bit of some pocus and maybe a whole box load of grenades if I can get my hands on them.” He looked at Lee. “You ready for a bit of destruction Slick? The kind that makes you wish you brought some clean underwear?”  
  
“Oh I’m ready, I have a few scores to settle.”   
  
“Good! Glad to hear it!” Baz thumped her back jovially. “All right we’ll meet by the way we got in, and try to take some of this place down on our way out. Let’s move out!” he grabbed the scout’s scatter gun and handed it to Lee, and gave Kingston his rifle before heading off in the direction  the main artillery rooms of the base.


	17. Escape

Frances slunk around the corners of the corridors and delved in and out of the shadows.  Kingston fell in behind, although without the same approach to concealment as the Frenchmen. He didn’t see the point to do so when all the halls he was following the man through where pretty empty, but you never knew when heading to the enemy base’s control room what would be lurking around the next corner. He shared Baz’s world view of the spy, even only on a basic human level. The man had this ‘feeling’ about him that made you dislike him and any word that he uttered. Frances stopped and held and arm out to stop Kingston’s accidental advance forward.   
  
“We’re here.” The spy pursed a finger to his lips. Kingston by this point slightly fed up of wandering around long, windy and empty corridors pushed Frances back and lay flat against the door’s edge and slowly began to open it with the tip of his rifle. If there was something or someone in there he would be the first one to shoot, something that would take his mind off wanting to shoot the spy for leading him on a goose chase. Behind him he heard the spy mutter, “And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial.*”   
  
Kingston groaned. “Could you please stop spouting rubbish will you?” he didn’t even bother to look back at the spy. “If there is someone around here they’d of heard you give away our bloody position!”  
  
Frances scowled. “Heathen.” He spat the word. “You have no grasp in the beauty of words used in correct dramatic effect.”  
  
“And that’s just the way I want to leave it.” Kingston snorted, changing his attention back to the room. The door creaked open, and much to the disappointment of the soldier, it was void of life.   
  
The bases control room was full of old machinery, there was taper recorders and communication equipment a plenty and a few huge hulking monstrosities that to the soldier couldn’t be identified even if he was smart enough to earn a degree in information sciences.  Things hummed and vibrated and groaned with unnatural noises. Fans inside them whirred and lights blinked and beeped.  
  
Frances strolled over to one large machine in the middle of the room that stood in full view of a large missile rocket on the other side of the safety glass. He flexed his fingers and wiggled them theatrically; fully intent on pressing buttons at random just to see what would happen.  
  
Kingston turned his back on the spy and rubbed the stubble on his jaw, tapped the brim of the soldier’s stash and brushed the badly healed joint on his nose while staring off into the shadows. He’d seen other’s do it before, and never really saw the point in doing so, but never the less tried anyway.  Should have brought a crowbar, he thought. There was tapping and random slapping of buttons behind him. Frances clearly was enjoying himself, or was just hitting things till he got a response out of the computer. Kingston walked a little bit more towards the shadows in the corner, his gaze fixed on a chair near a large two way radio that sprawled machinery along the wall. The control room was far too empty and way too important to be left unguarded for his liking. Kingston stared until the darkness blinked back.  
  
Baz crawled behind a few large creates and scuttled into position behind a large ram-shackled truck and nodded to Lee who was just out of sight behind some light cover of a small shipping container. She clicked some fresh shells into the scattergun and gave him thumbs up that the weapon was now live. The older scout doubled his grip on a wooden bat he managed to ‘acquire’ after carefully removing it from one of the over-stocked creates and listened intently to the echoes of the empty loading bay.  
  
CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP, PAP! BURRRUURP!  
  
“AHK CANNA BELIEVES YER CALL THIS CRRRAP BEER LADS!”  
  
Baz caught Lee’s expression from her hiding spot. It was the same one he had being reflected back at him, one of slight confusion followed by realization that their quarry was intoxicated. This tipped the balance somewhat knowing the enemy was not only outnumbered, but wasn’t going to be able to stand up on two legs for very long… at least that what was running through Lee’s mind. Baz on the other hand had been in plenty of fights with drunken men even from his own side to know two valuable things: Drunks, while inhibited can easily be enraged and forced into making mistakes and can miss shots from any sort of weapon that involves any remote ability to aim, secondly and most importantly, Drunks can be rather violent and tend not to play by the rules in any way shape or form in a hand to hand brawl and know not only how to smash a bottle over your skull with immense force, but are also able to shove a barstool where the sun doesn’t shine.  
  
“WHO THA HELL CALLS A LARRGER MITILDA? BLOODY PANSY-ARSED CONVICT BULLDERCRRRAP!”  
  
BUUURRRP!   
  
CLINK. SHHHRRRK-CLINK!  
  
There was a shine of light reflecting on the rims of the truck. Lee watched Baz’s expression change, and he held up a hand for her to see to make sure she would stay put. This could get ugly.  
  
Kingston swung the butt of the rifle into the air inches above the chair and was rewarded with a loud grunt as the light and shadows flickered revealing a cloaked spy being flung from the chair. Frances turned around just in time to knife enemy spy as the man got up and lurched an attack back towards the soldier. As the man slumped over another decloaked behind Frances and was struck across the side of the head from a wild swing from the soldier’s shotgun. Kingston then fired as the man stumbled and begin to re-lunge, the shot hitting its target and not so cleanly removing half the enemy spies face. It was an artwork of splatter all over the wall behind, and the body was draining blood like it was a never ending fountain.  
  
“Fuck.” Kingston spat the word. He leaned back against one of the large computer consoles and there was a click as his palm rested on the edge.  
  
WHOOOP WHOOPP WHOOOP! SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED IN 5 MINUTES!  
  
“Well, if I had known it was THAT easy I would have done that the second we entered.” Frances sulked sarcastically.  
  
Careful not to show his surprise, Kingston lit a smoke and flicked the match onto one of the corpses and watched the cheap polyester go up with a satisfied ‘WHOOOMPH!’   
And that would have been that, except for the fact that the corridors where now filling up with the enemy ready to charge into the main control room and investigate the entire ruckus. Hopefully, they were nowhere near there when they arrived.  
   
  
“ARGHK KNOOW WHENSHESH IN LOOOOOVE!” the drunken Scotsman began to sing. Hoping to keep him in the ‘happy drunk state’ Baz slided out from behind the truck and raised the bat poised to strike. He swung, and the bat connected with steel.   
  
“You think a drunken Scotsman canna no longer here year cloppin’ around in your wee little booties from behind ‘im eh?” the enemy slurred, revealing a mouth full of rotting teeth with a glint of gold. “Let me tell yah somthin’ laddie,” the man leaned in real close and the smell of old gin on his breath became the only thing the scout could inhale, “I ain’t just any ol’ stupid drunk.” He shoved the thinner man back and swung the broadsword in a clean arc and Baz only managed to block it with the bat before the sword sliced into his left side, the blade imbedding in the wood several inches, not enough to slice the end of the bat in half, but enough to tear a huge chunk from it as the blade was yanked back for another thrust, this time slicing into the scout’s shoulder and removing a chunk of his lower right ear. The demoknight gwarfed with drunken laughter and used his weight to push the unstable opponent over into some crates. He didn’t expect the scout to dodge out of the way when he hefted the sword into the splintering wood. Stumbling to regain balance and get a grip on his equilibrium the Scotsman lunged again only to completely miss on the swing and gain a good crack to the skull from the right side. Baz didn’t stop on that one swing neither, the second blow was aimed at the man’s knees to make him buckle and collapse was parried by wild sword blocks which in turn made the bat into one large splintery matchstick. The enemy red scythed the sword across the scout’s chest, leaveing a huge gaping wound, the pain forcing the scout to drop the remanets of the bat as he almost doubled over feeling like part of his chest had exploded.  
  
The Demoman pointed the sword at Baz’s throat and grinned, his smile clearly had a few teeth missing. Baz raised his blood soaked hands in defeat and in an effort to stall.  
  
“Yer think year’s so smart donchyer?” the man slurred. “Yer all think you can oot smart me laddy, But despite how fierce the King of the Savannah is, it’s the leopard that has all the grace and agility to win eh fight!”  
  
“Oh I wouldn’t know about that.” Said Baz thoughtfully stalling for time. “Ya see… The lion may look the part…”  
  
There was a moment of silence when the demoman realised there was a gun barrel now nudging him from the side of the head, but couldn’t see who or what was aiming it at him. He hesitated, and the scout infront of him continued; “But it’s the lioness that you should really be afraid of.”  
  
BANG!  
  
The Demoman’s body collapsed on the floor, minus his head, which had been blown into hundreds of shredded little pieces. Lee stood there, shaking with the scatter gun in her hands, nerves all over the place, fear causing a lump to settle in her throat. This had been the first time she’s actually shot a man dead at close range, or any range at all for that matter. In response to seeing the inside of another human being’s skull for the first time completely explode, she threw up.  
  
Baz had his eyes shut pretty tight too. He’d never seen a person shot in the head from this side before, usually when it was happening he was on the other end, holding the barrel. He counted to ten before opening them and avoiding trying to think about how much of the man’s brains where splattered all over him. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen a human head be blown to pieces; something’s are very hard to forget about no matter how many times you’ve witnessed it. He stepped over the dead man and tried to pat Lee on the shoulder reassuringly leaving bloody handprints on her, though it didn’t really make it any easier.  
  
“There’s always a first time Slick, and they’ll be more to come. Just be glad it was him and not one of us.” He hesitated. “And be happy it wasn’t someone from our side.” He stepped away and back over to the dead man to acquire the man’s grenade belt and grenade launcher. “Take it.”  
  
 “What? Take a weapon form a dead man?”  
  
Baz, covered in splattered blood and plenty of his own, gave Lee a dirty look. “You’re absolutely serious? You just killed a man with a stolen weapon. Since when did you suddenly develop a conscience?”  The stare was half intelligent, and the questions squarely aimed at her morality. “When its life of death Slick, the weapon of choice is the least of the things you need to worry about, cause if you hesitate, they’ll kill you first.” He discovered a pistol on the corpse and pocketed it, knowing that it would come in handy later. It was a weapon he was familiar with and knew he could still aim if he was incapacitated.  Then there was the alarm. So much for sneaking out of here. Baz stood up, fell back and grabbed the rims of the truck behind. He didn’t expect the wound to be bleeding out so much. He looked up at lee, “I think we’re going to have a little problem…”  
  
 _* Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare_


	18. Tragic Heroism

‘Hurry! This way!” Lee ran ahead down the narrow corridor infront of Baz and halted suddenly as the path ahead of them was leading onto the huge launching bay for the RED Missiles which was surrounded by a large gaping hole. Baz fired back down the corridor and took out a cloaked spy that had slipped on some of the blood they had been trailing behind them and gave his position away by landing heavily on the floor.  
  
Baz grabbed her by the arm and spun her in the direction of another exit. “Start running!” he choked out, pushing her forward. “I’m running low on ammo and if they come behind us I don’t know how long I can hold them off!”  
  
The direction he was pushing her towards involved a pretty huge leap of faith onto a middle platform, then another across to the other side of the launch bay. “You’re not serious?”  
  
“You’re a scout, running and jumping is what your damn good at!” Baz snapped back hurriedly. He was aware that above them there was shouting that was getting louder and sooner or later they were going to be trapped there if they didn’t get a move on. “Alright, follow my lead then.” He took a few steps back, ran forward and leapt. Lee watched as the man landed heavily on the middle platform, stumbled a bit on the footing and stand back up. “What are you waiting for?!” he shouted back, “JUST JUMP!”  
  
Lee hesitated. She gave a quick glance behind as the sound of thundering footsteps, stepped back and jumped. Her body thumped hard on the middle platform and slid as their combined weight landing on it caused it to tilt and slide them down towards the gaping pit. She felt arms grab her around the waist and haul her up and before she could yep the floor on the other side of the launch bay was under her and the landing on her sides on the concrete sent shockwaves through her body.   
  
“Get up, Let’s move!” Lee’s body fought to steady herself onto all fours, then she was pulled roughly to her feet and dragged along. They ducked into a new corridor and stumbled down it until they were out in the cold night air. Sirens where going off all over the place and spotlights were searching the grounds in a madden sweep to try and find the escapees and their rescuers.  
  
“DAMN! We can’t get to the perimeter from here.” Baz leaned against the nearest wall. The wound in his chest and the quick thinking last minute mauver off the platform where taking their toll. “I hope Steve-o and that French bastard are having better luck than us.” He coughed, the action causing him to buckle in the legs a bit as all the air had been struggling to get back into his body. “Do you still have that grenade?”  
  
Lee pulled it out from the folds in her shirt. “Yep.” She saw him indicate back down the way they came. They were still being followed, but they were still a bit far off.  Lee pulled the pin and threw the grenade into the corridor where it bounced around off some of the wall till it rolled into a side room before exploding, causing the whole corridor to collapse and cave inwards. Both scouts lay flat against the wall to avoid being in the way of the dust and the rubble that flew out of the way they came in.   
  
“Nice work. Now lets’ get out of here.” Baz winced and leaned against the wall again.  
  
“You need a few minutes?” Lee asked attentively.  
  
“Like hell, we’ll be dead if we hang around.” he forced himself upright, doing a very bad job at masking the pain that it was causing for him to do so. There was no point, there was enough blood dripping out of him he knew acting all tough wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Lee lead the way, both of them keeping close to the walls out of the lights as they edged around the building towards the base’s storage yard. She stopped when they spotted a Heavy with a large mini-gun outside what looked to be a small arms storage shed for the base.  
  
“Do you think we can nab a few new guns before we make our way out to be on the safe side?” Lee glanced back to her superior and realised Baz’s wasn’t listening. He was thinking of how to get around the large Russian who was going to be in the way wither they went for the shed or not. He checked the clip in his pistol he had stolen from the red demoman back down in the storage hold and clicked his tongue when he realised there wasn’t going to be enough ammunition to take the big man down. He handed Lee the pistol and grabbed the next best thing, a hunk of metal that was long enough to swing.   
  
“If I don’t knock him out, feel free to shoot. If either fails be prepared to run.” Baz got up and moved along the walls keeping in the shadows till he made it all around the enemy heavy. Lee watched like a cat ready to pounce on a bird if anything went bad, preying she didn’t have to pull the trigger. On kill up close was enough for her for one day. She watched Baz raise the hunk of metal and swing it, although it never made contact with the big man. Instead, he uncloaked Frances, who was about to stab the heavy from behind, having the same idea, but he and Kingston had come from the other side. The enemy spun around, But Baz was quicker and swung the metal into the man’s face, breaking his nose buying enough time for Lee to leap out from her hiding spot and pump the last of the ammunition from the pistol into him.she dropped the gun and threw up again. Eventually she’d become desensitised to it, but it will take a few years at best to do so. Kingston has also come out of hiding was firing shot gun rounds at the man, making the Heavy’s life come to a sudden end.  
  
Both Baz and Kingston picked up Frances and dragged him into the store house with lee following behind checking if they had been seen, before closing the doors behind them.  
  
“Successfully blown up the control room Sarge,”Kingston grinned. “Although blown up is not quite the word. More along the lines of me setting fire to things and our light fingered friend here pressing all the right buttons and ripping out the right wires to fry everything.”  
  
“Good work Steve.” Baz grinned back. “We took out their transport at least, so they won’t be able to pursue us very far once we get out of here.” Taking out several trucks with sentry guns built on top of them with a few well places grenades and sticky bombs while in the storage bay while under heavy fire was enough to make him feel light headed. Either that or he was losing way too much blood to feel very fluffy in the brain.   
  
Lee pried open a crate and rummaged through it to produce another pistol that resembled a sawn off revolver. “Would you check this out!?” she grinned evilly “It’s like some sort of short stop! And look! There are hundreds of the things in here!”  
  
“Geez, not only do they out number us, they can out gun us too!” Kingston groaned. He started to inspect the crates too, hoping to cross one marked ‘Rocket Launchers”.   
  
Baz clicked his fingers infront of Frances’s face to try and bring him around; in the end he violently shook the man awake. “Look Froggy, I may not trust you an inch but we need to come out of here alive with you as well otherwise we’ll look like fucking fools going in here, you got that?!”  
  
“You can unhand me right now you heathen.” Frances mumbled.  
  
“My absolute pleasure.” Baz let the man go, making him fall back down onto the hard concrete behind him. As an afterthought he brush his hands on his blood-soaked clothes looking a bit disgusted with himself that he had to ‘touch’ the spy in anyway shape or form. “Ok, here’s the plan. We’re going to make a break for it toward that opening in the fence we used to get into here. Chances are that they might know our exit route so we need to be well armed and prepared to run like our pants are on fire.” He reached into the nearest box and pulled out a pistol that had some ornate wings embossed on it. He was impressed. It was quality workmanship, and looked like a real-life replica of the pistol used by the famous comic book hero, ‘Bonk Boy’ who fought mad scientists, psychotic soldiers and other types of madmen. The best propaganda aimed at children and adults who refused to grow up and act their age and live in the real world.  
  
“Just so you guys know, if we don’t make it out of here alive...” Lee started to say before pausing to think about the next few words. “You’ve been like the best older brotherish people I’ve ever had the chance to meet.”  
  
Kingston flushed slightly red, and the usual cocky lopsided grin crossed Baz’s face. “Well you’re like the sis- I mean Little brother I always wanted, Slick.” Baz walked up to her and brushed a playful fist against her jaw and ruffled her hair.  
  
“AW! YOU GUYS!” Kingston squished them together in a large group hug.  
  
Frances tapped his foot. “I’m terribly sorry to ruin your family moment, but we need to be getting a move on.” His voice sounded irritated for one being left out of the ‘togetherness moment.’  
  
“Alright, arm up, and ship out!”  
  
  
Four shadows snuck out of the shed, slinking around the building towards the exit they needed to reach to get out into freedom. There was a distinct whirring of sentry guns and quite a bit of beeping which suggested there was more than one littered around the escape route, far too many for one spy to take out and too many to outrun.  
  
“Ok, now what?” Frances hissed. “I can only take out a few of them before they notice we’re here as the guns shut down.”  
  
“We might have to do a runner. It’s a long shot, and suicidal, but it’s better than nothing. Besides,” Baz pointed towards the nearest sentry. “They’re facing the wrong way, we can take advantage of the slow turn around speed. Granted, it would give us… oh a few seconds, but that’s better than nothing.”  
  
“Is there another way?” Lee asked.  
  
“Of course there is,” Baz smiled. “But this one is more direct and let’s is honest, less messy for us.” He adjusted the Black box that he had nestled on his shoulder. The launcher was damn heavy, but the rockets it was able to fire had a decent blast radius and let’s face it you couldn’t argue with a weapon that looked so inconspicuous and damn easy to fire. He gave Kingston a nod, the soldier also holding a rocket launcher with great ease, however his was long and much tapered in design and the cannon end looks as if it was built for rapid rocket fire.  
  
“Frances will lead; Slick then Steve-o, then I’ll bring up the rear. Any questions?” this was met with a generalised shaking of heads. “Right.” He grunted. “LET’S GET MOVING BOYS!”  
  
Frances made the first break, dodging and weaving, teasing the sentries with his cloak and dagger invisibility by winking it on and off long enough to draw away the sentry fire, but also keep him from being shot. While the sentries where tracking him, Lee bolted out and skidded along as she ran for the fence. Kingston came out, and just as the sentries began to tick back over and lock on him, Baz darted out, so both of them had the power of duel cannons took out the first sentry before it fired. The second sentry spun on its tripod in a whirr and rattled off several round of machine gun fire, but by then Kingston was firing ahead at the third one taking out its rockets and Baz was firing behind them as the sentry activity had alerted the enemy to their presence and to their escape route.  
“RUN LIKE BLAZES!” Baz shouted shoving Kingston forward, throwing off the man’s aim. “Get to the fence then you can fire back! Get them while on the run!”  
  
Kingston grabbed the launcher so it was easier to manage and started to make a limped run towards the hole in the fencing where Lee and Frances where both firing back into the compound from. He turned his head to shout back for Baz to hurry up when it happened. One of the sentries he’d missed firing at managed to shoot off a rapid round and strike the scout behind him. Kingston lifted the launcher up to take it out with a critical rocket when some shots fired from the approaching enemy came from the side of the man and hit him with full force bringing him to the ground. For Kingston, the world around felt like it had slowed, as the body of his Conrad hit the dust.  
  
“YOU WILL FUCKING PAY FOR THAT!” He Bellowed, rage clearly now taking over all of his immediate actions, he charged back into them headlong firing everything he had left in the rocket at them till he reached Baz’s body, where he dropped the launcher and grabbed the corpse and slipped and slid his way back for the exit out of the compound. Lee and Frances helped him get the body through the fence, then he hefted it over his shoulders as all three of them ran into the darkness, weapon fire following behind them till they were a good way off, too far away from the base and in the darkness for them to be bothered with.  
  
Kingston flopped the body down with as much grace as the circumstances allowed, and checked for any signs of life. Both Lee and Frances watched his shoulders slump when the realisation that there was none was established. There was an eerie silence that fell over all of them in the darkness of the desert. Kingston lowered his helm and fought back a snuffle. Although not much could be said for Lee, tears where streaking down the dirt that covered her face. He placed his helmet on the dead mans’ head, stood up and took a deep breath. What was there to say at a time like this? Nothing, that’s what,. Even the spy was quiet, although it was clear that Frances did feel a slight pang of sympathy despite not liking the man.  
  
 Frances then spoke “To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life.** What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief.***”  
  
 Kingston patted Lee on the shoulder and muttered something, before heading off in the direction of the Gravel pit. Lee just stared out into the open darkness of night and watched it swallow him, with Frances falling into step behind. She remembered before she made her break for it, the object that Baz had palmed into her hand. She unfurled her fingers to see the man’s dogtags, a bullet that looked like it had something caved in it and a small silver ring. She glared at them with all the hatred in the world. He knew he was going to die! She thought angrily, getting ready to throw the items far out into the night. She hesitated in letting them go as another thought arrived as fast as the first one. What if he didn’t really know? How could he have? Unless he PLANNED it, though that was highly impossible. She looked at them again and noticed the ring was inscribed, though impossible to read in the dark.  
  
“Hey kid! You just going to stand there or are you coming with us?” Frances called back.  
  
“Let her be. She just saw someone she knew die. She’ll come with us when she’s ready.”   
  
Lee paused and took a deep breath. Knowing Baz he’d have told her to suck it up and get on with it, it’s a battle field, what do you expect to happen on it? People die, the battle keeps going strong and all we can hope for is that our comrades in arms don’t let us down and let us die for nothing. Yeah, he’d say something like that, she thought to herself perking up with a new sense of purpose. And with this, she darted off to catch up with them, leaving the dead to rest in peace.  
  
The news wasn’t well received when they returned. A gloomy silence had befallen the remints of the Tuefort and Gravel pit teams. The shock of it failed to fall on the ears of Chatter, who was still mad that Baz had gone off and done such a stupid thing in the first place, but after much restraining him from trying to nail France’s head to the nearest wall it had finally sunk in that he had lost more than just a team mate, but something close enough to a son. Irene was just as upset, although she spent most of the whole affair trying to see it all from her husband’s point of view. The blu side had lost too many people in one day, and it was now clear how much it had affected them all.  
  
Lee was sitting in a corner all alone, flicking something around in her palms. Kingston walked over and sat down beside her and handed her a can of soda, while he then proceeded to light a cigar. There they sat in silence for a few minutes, till Kingston removed the hat Baz gave him from his head and said, “I know a thing or two about the dead, and I’ll let you in on something love, That body of our sarge wasn’t real.”  
  
Lee sat up, annoyed and snapped. “What do you mean it wasn’t real? We SAW him DIE and when we checked his body later there was no sign of life!”  
  
Kingston gave her a glare of a man who knows exactly what a dead body looks like and also knows what limbs do when there’s no life in them. “Take my word for it, he’s not dead. If he were, the body wouldn’t be limp, it was stiff. That corpse was a fake love.”  
  
“He couldn’t have FAKED that. That was too real.”  
  
The soldier shrugged. “Let’s think positively about this shall we? I’d hate to think a man like him wouldn’t go out without a lot of fireworks. Blaze of glory is his style, don’t you think so?”  
  
“He gave me his dogtags, and some other things where on them.” Lee showed them to Kingston. There was also a small bullet with a name engraved and a small silver ring. Kingston read the name on the bullet and laughed.  
  
“Now I didn’t think the man was THAT superstitious! Now this REALLY means he’s alive. He’d want them back sooner or later I assure you.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Lee’s brow furrowed.  
  
Kingston pointed to the bullet. “Ever heard the saying ‘there’s a bullet out there with your name on it’?”  
  
The scout shook her head.  
  
“It’s like this, the theory is that if you already have the bullet with you name on it, you cannot be killed by it. It’s an interesting superstition that dates back to soldiers during the First World War. I suppose you could look at it as a good luck charm, and another reason to believe that he’s alive out there somewhere.” He patted Lee on the shoulder and started to walk off back inside the base. Lee looked at the items in her hand one last time before putting them around her own neck.   
  
“Let’s hope so, and Maybe some of his luck can rub off onto me till I can give them back.”  
  
 _**Falstaff - Henry The Fourth, William Shakespeare_  
  
 _*** Paulina- The Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare_


	19. Epiloge

BIZZRT! The unnatural sound of the dead ringer chimed as the twenty second escape cloak wore off. Baz leaned against a nearby rock, still inside the compound, but well out of sentry fire. A cough rattled through his body as blood was brought up but it wasn’t as painful as the areas where the bullets had hit him. Too weak to make a full run for it and knowing those last few shots wouldn’t get him anywhere far enough to get away from the compound, he was glad that he managed to help them escape. He wouldn’t have made it all the way back with the chest injury anyway, but at least now if he survived they wouldn’t come back for him as they’d think he was already dead. All he had to do now was wait for that final breath. He closed his eyes, and waited, as he was damn well going to tell death what he really thought of him and at least give the skeleton a kick in the pants before he was dismissed into whatever afterlife a soldier has when they have given up on believing in false gods.  
  
“HEY! OVER HERE!”  
  
“There’s a trail of blood.”  
  
“I can SEE THAT you numnut, it means we’ve still got a live one!”  
  
There was a click of a rifle. “’E won’t be for long will ‘e Jim?”  
  
There was the sound of approaching footsteps that halted in front of Baz.  
  
“Well lookie what we found ‘ere Jim!” the solder smiled, kicking Baz and grinned wider as the scout let out a pain filled groan. “Shall I blast ‘em and that’d be the end of it?”  
  
“Wait.” The one known as Jim halted the soldier. He leaned down and grabbed Baz by the shirt and inspected the sleeves. “Well I’ll be a Wombat’s uncle! He’s a Sargent! Hey Gerald, I think we’d better take this one back inside, he might be valuable.”  
  
“Awww, but Jim-”   
  
“Yeah yeah I know, but orders are orders Gerald. Those of rank are meant to be handed over ALIVE. Just think, at least the higher ups will give us a pay increase for this find.”  
  
There was more conversation after that, but for Baz, everything had gone quiet…. For now.


End file.
